Thy face, my friend, is beauty-pale,
And doth a slender sweet exhale,
And here is but a homely vale,
And fancy draws
No dearness out of song or tale,
In thine applause;
And some there are who only prize
The blossoms wooed from foreign skies,
In odors drenched and dewy dyes,
But thou shalt be
Companion to my fonder eyes,
And kin to me.
When I shall praise a flower the more
Because its gilded portals pour
The sweetness of a foreign shore,
I’ll jog with those
Who drop the rhyme’s laborious oar,
And flow in prose.
All themes that Love and Honor use,
All tender, soul-inspiring views,
And all the raptures of the muse,
Howe’er we roam,
Like the sweet Grace that shuns abuse
Begin at home.
And where my steps are frequent led—
In beaten haunts—where’er I tread,
Are seeds of wit and wisdom spread,
That not abound,
Only because my heart and head
Are stony ground.
Thou claimant of a mutual birth
Poor kinsman of a fickle hearth,
Flower of the bleak New England earth,
I cannot deem
Your modest crown so little worth
In my esteem.
When spring returning, odor-sweet,
Touches the turf with tinsel feet,
Thy fresh rosette once more we meet,
By sun or shade,
Like Joy to smiles, with generous greet,
Or just displayed.
But soon thy little youth is gone,
Thy ample-headed age comes on,
And thou a standing wig dost don,
Of seedy hair,
Frayed by the winds, till bald as stone,
Thy skull is bare.
Ye sacred, sweet, sonorous Nine—
Dear Floras of the bowers divine—
Should Age discrown my sable twine
Of hairy weed,
Give me to say—This pate of mine
Has gone to seed.
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