University of Virginia Library

Hear ye! who list this simple lay,
How Lusitanian lady gay,
From sunnier regions far away,
Myrtle and orange bowers,
Deigned in our frigid climes to stay,
Cheating the dullness of the day,
By bidding yonder vase display
Its imitative flowers.
Within that vase, a wondrous thing,
Her talismanic touch could bring
The mimic progeny of spring
To live, or seem to live,
And in her reverie would seem
To foster Fancy's, Memory's dream,
Oblivion's images redeem,
Teach fond associate thoughts to beam,
And warmth and fragrance give.
As brief, as brittle as that dream,
The vase, alas! my mournful theme!
Too soon in dust was laid!
Protecting sylphs, is this your care?
And guardian gnomes, O! tell me where—
Where was your wonted aid?
That aid, which still from age to age
Shall shine in Pope's recording page,
Yon monster might have stayed;
And ye, too, train of elphin birth,
Titania's subjects, sylphs of earth,
Though tiny each, your myriad worth
Collective might have saved.
A fierce grimalkin from the wood
Profaned the shrine wherein it stood,
And as the Ephesian miscreant viewed
The temple firm and fair,
Alike this modern outlaw, proud
And bold, to sure destruction vowed
This vase, so rich and rare.
Nor in suspense the blow was hung;
Swift to his mark the ruffian sprung,
Like tiger on his prey.
Down fell the vase with clashing sound,
And all its fragments on the ground
Beauteous in ruins lay!
E'en so Palmyra's prostrate towers,
The pride of other days than ours,
Attract the musing eye,
And at Etrurius' mould'ring fane,
And thine, O, classic Greece! must gain
The moralizing sigh.
If towers and temples thus must fall,
E'en vases, too, must hear the call
Of violence of time.
Yet shall the muse thy worth rehearse,
Thou shattered subject of my verse,
In monumental rhyme.
'Twas Gallia gave thee to the day,
Moulded of purest porcelain clay,
Thy well-proportioned frame,
Thy polished front, thy snowy side,
And colors bright, were all her due,
And hers to give thy name.

And since the Fates decree that all
Of Gallia's arms or arts must fall
When leagued grimalkins 'reft her hall
Of statue and of bust,
What wonder if it be presumed
Her roses, like her Venus, doomed,
Should fall and kiss the dust?
Behold, all ye this verse who list,
How humblest instruments assist
In every grand design:
Columbian cats, though rough the race,
Republicans, and out of place,
May aid Duke Wellington, His Grace,
“Great moral lessons” to impress,
While vases share the like distress
With fallen Napoleon's line!
O! that were mine the votive skill
Of him who taught his notes to swell
The drowning tabby's funeral knell
With Orpheus' fabled power!
Then higher should my notes ascend,
And fitter melodies attend
The vase's final hour;
But, since 'tis all a bard can do
To do his best, that best for you,
Lady, my hand essayed;
And if it wake one ready smile
Sense of privation to beguile,
The effort is repaid.