I know that you are modest, know That when you hear your merit's praise, Your cheeks quick blushes come and go, Lily and rose-leaf, sun and snow, Like maidens' on their bridal days. I know that you would fain decline To aid me and the sacred nine, In giving to the asking earth The story of your wit and worth; For if there be a fault to cloud The brightness of your clear good sense, It is, and be the fact allow'd, Your only failing--Diffidence! An amiable weakness--given To justify the sad reflection, That in this vale of tears not even A R*k*r is complete perfection, A most romantic detestation Of power and place, of pay and ration; A strange unwillingness to carry The weight of honour on your shoulders, For which you have been named, the very Sensitive Plant of office-holders, A shrinking bashfulness, whose grace Gives beauty to your manly face. Thus shades the green and growing vine The rough bark of the mountain pine, Thus round her freedom's waking steel Harmodius wreathed his country's myrtle; And thus the golden lemon's peel Gives fragrance to a bowl of turtle. True, "many a flower," the poet sings, "Is born to blush unseen;" But you, although you blush, are not The flower the poets mean. In vain you wooed a lowlier lot: In vain you clipp'd your eagle-wings-- Talents like yours are not forgot And buried with earth's common things. No! my dear R*k*r, I would give My laurels, living and to live, Or as much cash as you could raise on Their value, by hypothecation, To be, for one enchanted hour, In beauty, majesty, and power, What you for forty years have been, The Oberon of life's fairy scene. An anxious city sought and found you In a blessed day of joy and pride, Scepter'd your jewell'd hand, and crown'd you Her chief, her guardian, and her guide. Honours which weaker minds had wrought In vain for years, and knelt and pray'd for, Are all your own, unpriced, unbought, Or (which is the same thing) unpaid for. Painfully great! against your will Her hundred offices to hold, Each chair with dignity to fill, And your own pockets with her gold. A sort of double duty, making Your task a serious undertaking.