"Charles on Fire" by James Merrill

A little preface, this is one of the poems we looked at in AP Lit last year, and it's my personal favorite of all the poems we read (though it may or may not be my favorite poem, as I have yet to decide between it and "Hope is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson). I think "Charles on Fire" has some of the most well-written and well-used poetic devices I've ever seen. It's elegant without being pretentious. It's complex but not at the cost of losing its original meaning. It comments on social issues without being preachy. And it's just beautiful. 

Another evening we sprawled about discussing
Appearances. And it was the consensus
That while uncommon physical good looks
Continued to launch one, as before, in life
(Among its vaporous eddies and false claims),
Still, as one of us said into his beard,
"Without your intellectual and spiritual
Values, man, you are sunk." No one but squared
The shoulders of their own unlovliness.
Long-suffering Charles, having cooked and served the meal,
Now brought out little tumblers finely etched
He filled with amber liquor and then passed.
"Say," said the same young man, "in Paris, France,
They do it this way"--bounding to his feet
And touching a lit match to our host's full glass.
A blue flame, gentle, beautiful, came, went
Above the surface. In a hush that fell
We heard the vessel crack. The contents drained
As who should step down from a crystal coach.
Steward of spirits, Charles's glistening hand
All at once gloved itself in eeriness.
The moment passed. He made two quick sweeps and
Was flesh again. "It couldn't matter less,"
He said, but with a shocked, unconscious glance
Into the mirror. Finding nothing changed,
He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us.