Baffling

Baffling me how beauty can hold much sway;
How the features of sublime face can grip;
How a simple crack of the mouth can lay
All fortitude away. Such may pay lip
Service to avowed clarity of mind.
But, lo, has it not always been the slave
Of the burning, as the sun's flames, in kind?
So what of the embers, must them I stave?
With what shall I douse these infernal coals?
Will the sands of time and sea of distance
Send up the heavens in a smoky dole
This that baffles as it does now and hence?