ubtile art!
When ye, with nicest, finest skill, had wrought
This chiefest work, the choicest blessings brought
And stored them at its roots, prepared each part,
Matured the bud, painted the dainty bloom,
Ye stood and gazed until the fruit should come.
Ah, foolish elves!
Look ye that yon frail flower should be sublimed
To fruit commensurate with all your power
And cunning art? Was it for such ye climbed
The slanting sunbeams, coaxing many a shower
From the coy clouds? Ye did exceed yourselves;
And as ye stand and gaze, lo, instantly
The whole etherealized ye see:
From topmost golden spray to lowest root,
The whole is fruit.
Well have ye wrought,
And in your honor now shall incense rise.
The oaken chair, the cheerful blaze, invite
Calm meditation, while the flickering light
Casts strange, fantastic shadows on the wall,
Where goodly tomes, with ample lading fraught
Of gold of wit and gems of fancy rare,
Poet and sage, mute witnesses of all,
Smile gently on me, as, with sober care,
I reach the pipe and thoughtfully prepare
The sacrifice.

O fragile clay!
Erst white as e'er a lily of old Nile,
But now imbrowned and ambered o'er and through
With richest tints and ever-deepening hue,
Quintessence of rare essences the while
Uphoarding, as thou farest day by day,
Thou mind'st me of a genial face I knew.
At first it was but fair, nought but a face;
But as I read and learned it, wondrous grace
And beauty marvellous did grow and grow,
Till every hue of the sweet soul did show
Most beautiful from brow and lip and eye.
And thus, O clay,
Child of the sea-foam, nursed amid the spray,
Thy visage changes, ever grows more fair
As the fine spirit works expression there!
Blest be the tide that rapt thee from the roar
And cast thee on the far Danubian shore,
And blest the art that shaped thee daintily!
And thou, O fragrant tube attenuate!
No more in the sweet-blooming cherry-grove,
Where the shy bulbul plaintive mourns her love,
Shalt thou uplift thy blossoms to the sky,
Or wave them o'er the waters rippling by;
No more thy fruit shall stud with jewels red
The leafy crown thou fashionedst for thy head.
Not this thy fate.
When the swart damsel from thy parent tree
Did lop thee with thy fellows, and did strip