Classic Poem

Youth feels the true poetic gleam:
Know we in manhood's noonday time
A glow like that celestial beam
Which gilds the soul's “sweet hour of prime?”

Fancy, matur'd by art and taste,
Her bed with full-blown flow'rs may hang;
But, where's the new-born bloom which grac'd
The buds that round her cradle sprang?

How rich soe'er the classic treat
Which learning's deeper springs afford,
Castalian dews are ne'er so sweet
As when from Hebe's chalice pour'd!

If Fancy's smiles have pow'r to charm
When youthful Poets' thoughts they dress,
Far more they charm when first they warm
A youthful, lovely Poetess!—

Oh! Poetry is most divine
When virgin beauty she inspires,
As still those sun-beams brightest shine
Which light the diamond's prismy fires!

Men for the Prose of human kind,
But Women for its Verse were born;
How dull the book of life we find
Unless they ev'ry page adorn!

Though ev'ry god that wont to bless
This earth, our haunts have long forsook;
From Verse, and Women, still we guess
How angels talk, how angels look!—