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The master-piece of Art’s great master,
Mr. Praxiteles Browere,²
Whose trowel is a thing divine,
Shall smile and bow, and promise there,
And twenty-nine fine forms and faces
(The Corporation and the Mayor),
Linked hand in hand, like Loves and Graces,
Shall hover o’er it, grouped in air,
With wild pictorial dance and song;
The song of happy bees in bowers,
The dance of Guido’s graceful Hours,
All scattering Flushing’s garden flowers³
Round the dear head they’ve loved so long.

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 allowed,
Your only failing—Diffidence!

An amiable weakness—given
To justify the sad reflection,