AS when with utmost skill some architect Designs a noble structure to erect, Searches whate'er each country does produce For outward ornament, or inward use: So, Friend, from divers books thy lab'ring thought Has all the huddled am'rous notions sought, And into form and shape the unlickt cubs has brought. Here Proteus-Love thou show'st in various dress, From gaudy France to more majestic Greece; Something thou gather'st too from Roman ore, And Spain contributes to thy well-got store, Whence (each by thee refin'd in English mould) Verse smooth as oil does flow, and pure as gold. Thus the laborious Bee with painful toil From various flowers of a various soil, Duly concocting the abstracted juice, In plenty does th' ambrosial food produce. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE EARL O' QUARTERDECK by GEORGE MACDONALD DEATH'S VALLEY by WALT WHITMAN THE SHAVEN BEAUTY by YUSUF IBN HARUN AL-RAMADI THE KNIGHTS: DEMOS AND HIS FLATTERER by ARISTOPHANES PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 16. AL-KAHHAR by EDWIN ARNOLD PSALM 15 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE EMILE ZOLA by MARJORIE W. BRACHLOW HEBREW MELODY by MRS. JAMES GORDEN BROOKS ON JOHN DOVE [JOHNNY DOW], INNKEEPER OF MAUCHLINE by ROBERT BURNS |