 | The writings of James Russell Lowell |  |
TO MISS D. T.
ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF LITTLE STREET ARABS.
As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime,Glow Farnesina's vaults with shapes again
That dreamed some exiled artist from his pain
Back to his Athens and the Muse's clime,
So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime,
Purged by Art's absolution from the stain
Of the polluting city-flood, regain
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An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song;
For as with words the poet paints, for you
The happy pencil at its labor sings,
Stealing his privilege, nor does him wrong,
Beneath the false discovering the true,
And Beauty's best in unregarded things.
| The writings of James Russell Lowell | |