Classic Poem

Such bounteous flowerets from so fair a hand,
The warmest thanks from Friendship's pen demand;
Ere yet the expanding buds perfumed the air,
Blest with the nurture of thy tender care,
The bloom they copied of celestial grace,
The lovely pictures of thy lovelier face.
Thine are those tints, which charm the admiring eye;
Thine the fair lustre of each fragrant dye.
On the free bounty of thy smile they live,
And to the world their borrowed splendour give.
Thus planets glitter on the robe of night,
And from the sun receive their silver light.
The flower, which blooms beneath the vernal ray,
Owes all its beauty to the orb of day;
For though the lily boasts its spotless form,
Yet Sol's pure lustre gave it every charm .
Thus mildly brilliant those effulgent eyes,
Which bade the fainting rose in bloom to rise,
Which each in Beauty's sky a golden sun,
Claim all those plaudits, which the rose has won,
Then, Rapture, cease on Harriot's gift to gaze,
And, Admiration, hold thy eager praise!
For though e'en Justice this encomium deigns,
That in its charms her faint resemblance reigns,
Yet while her tongue such lavish praise bestows,
In her, in her we view a fairer rose.