 | Voices and visions |  |
31
MONITIONS
TO A COQUETTE
They laud to-night your dark eyes' diamond thrall,Your lily of hand or rose of lip. ... And yet
Some trick of lamplight on the gilded wall
Has made your shadow a hag's gaunt silhouette.
TO A POET
First from pure strong thought build your structure strong,Then deck with beauty and music its firm shape,
Till rich rilievos round its portals throng
And garland-wise its roofs and oriels drape—
But ah! beware lest from your sculptured song
The gargoyles of hysteria idly gape!
TO A STATESMAN
Never canst thou so near true grandeur's goal,Nor from penurious life wring such choice gains,
As when in some dim reach of thine own soul
Dungeoned Ambition clanks his hopeless chains.
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