The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich :: :: University of Virginia Library

You ask us if by rule or no
Our many-colored songs are wrought:
Upon the cunning loom of thought
We weave our fancies, so and so.

The busy shuttle comes and goes
Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves
A tissue out of autumn leaves,
With here a thistle, there a rose.

With art and patience thus is made
The poet's perfect Cloth of Gold:
When woven so, nor moth nor mould
Nor time can make its colors fade.