LOSS AND GAIN. VIRTUE runs before the Muse, And defies her skill; She is rapt, and doth refuse Star-adoring, occupied, Virtue cannot bend her Just to please a poet's pride, The bard must be with good intent No more his, but hers; Must throw away his pen and paint, Kneel with worshippers. Then, perchance, a sunny ray His lost tools may overpay, 13 MEROPS. WHAT care I, so they stand the same, Things of the heavenly mind, How long the power to give them name Tarries yet behind? Thus far to-day your favors reach, Space grants beyond his fated road One word, no more, to say. THE HOUSE. THERE is no architect Can build as the Muse can; She is skilful to select Materials for her plan; Slow and warily to choose Rafters of immortal pine, Or cedar incorruptible, Worthy her design. She threads dark Alpine forests, Or valleys by the sea, In many lands, with painful steps, Ere she can find a tree. She ransacks mines and ledges, And quarries every rock, To hew the famous adamant For each eternal block. She lays her beams in music, In music every one, To the cadence of the whirling world Which dances round the sun; That so they shall not be displaced But, for the love of happy souls, Outlive the newest stars. |