Classic Poem

Friend Bolton! take these ingots fine,
From rich Potosi's sparkling mine;
With your nice art a Tea Vase mould,
Your art! more valued than the gold!
And where proud Radbourne's turrets rise,
To bright Eliza send the prize.
I'll have no serpents round it kiss
The foaming wave, and seem to hiss;
No Naiads weep, no Sphynxes stare,
No tail-hung Dolphins high in air.
Let wreathes of myrtle round the rim,
And twisting rose-buds form the brim.
Each side let woodbine stalks descend,
And form the handles as they bend;
While at the foot a Cupid stands,
And twines the wreathes with both his hands.
Perch'd on the rising lid above,
Oh! place a love-lorn turtle-dove,
With hanging wing, and ruffled plume,
And gasping beak, and eye of gloom.
Last, lest the swelling vases shine
With siver white, and burnish fine;
Bright as the font whose banks beside
Narcissus gaz'd, and lov'd, and died.
Vase! when Eliza deigns to pour
With snow-white hand thy boiling shower,
And sweetly talks, and smiles, and sips
Thy fragrant stream with ruby lips;
More charms thy polish'd front shall shew,
Than ever Titian's pencil drew;
More than his chisel soft unfurl'd,
Whose Heaven-wrought statue charms the world.