IF you had lived in that more stately time When men remembered the great Tudor queen, To noblest verse your name had wedded been, And you for ever crowned with golden rhyme. If, mid Lorenzo's Florence, made sublime By Art's Re-Birth, you had moved, a Muse serene, The mightiest limners had revealed your mien To all the ages and each wondering clime. Fled are the singers that from language drew Its virgin secrets, and in narrow space The mightiest limners sleep: and only He, The Eternal Artist, still creates anew What shames all else on earth -- the breathing grace That takes the world into captivity. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS AND HOW HE GAINED THEM by ROBERT SOUTHEY CRADLE SONG by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH KING AND PEOPLE by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB PRESIDIO HILL by JOHN VANCE CHENEY ON JOHN DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER, WHO DIED IN THE TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF AGE by NATHANIEL COTTON THE LITANY: 1. THE FATHER by JOHN DONNE |