To Beauty.

Beauty, beloved of all gentle hearts             And pure, and cherished of the gifted tribe         Whose skill to canvas and even stone imparts             Such things as words are powerless to describe.         And bards, who woo thee in the silent shade             And dote upon thee under moonlit skies,         And lovers, who behold thee new-array'd,             As our first parents did in Paradise!         These all have been thy priests.    In times remote,             In Athens and the cool Thessalian dells,         They sung thy liturgy with dulcet note,             And quaff'd thy chalice from the sacred wells         Of leafy Helicon.    Beneath the brows             Of fam'd Olympus and among the isles         Of the Aegean sea they paid their vows,             And read thy lore in Nature's frowns and smiles.         Nor strange to Zion's sanctuaried hill             Wast thou, embalmer of the holy page;         Ambrosial odors from thy garments fill             The garden where the amorous royal sage         Walk'd and discours'd with his beloved; there             Alluring in thy soft and sumptuous dress:         And to his kinglier sire supremely fair,             Companion sweet of meek-ey'd Holiness.         Thou hast no local temple, no set shrine;             Thou art diffus'd o'er earth and sky and sea;         In every land a thousand haunts are thine,             Spirits of every race respond to thee.         Here thy Olympus and thy Zion hill,             Thy silvery Aegean, I survey;         Thy majesty and loveliness at will             I view, and own thy tranquilizing sway.