Flattery

"I have been used to consider poetry as 'the food of love,'" said Darcy.

 "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice 

Speak not to me in measured numbers filled
With calculated praise; compare me not
To things soon dead and gone. Such words have killed
The mood that thou had sought to stir to thought.

Thou art too quick to speak and slow to think
Of all that love implies. Thy flow’ry tongue
Does drown thy good in faults as black as ink,
And make thy lusty youth look yet more young.

Oh, cease thy foolish flattery at once!
Thine outward praise is cold and sharp as rain--
For thou must think me an angelic dunce
Not to note that thy noble self is vain.

        But I beg, don’t stop on account of me,
        For with thine own words thou might happy be.