The Cornelian
No specious splendour of this stone,
Endears it to my memory ever,
With lustre only once it shone,
But blushes modest as the giver.
2
Some who can sneer at friendship’s ties,
Have for my weakness oft reprov’d me,
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
For I am sure, the giver lov’d me.
3
He offered it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it,
I told him when the gift I took,
My only fear should be to lose it.
4
This pledge attentively I view’d,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
And ever since I’ve lov’d a tear.
5
Still to adorn his humble youth,
Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield,
But he who seeks the flowers of truth,
Must quit the garden for the field.
6
’Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,
Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume,
The flowers which yield the most of both,
In nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.
7
Had Fortune aided nature’s care,
For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
If well proportioned to his mind.
8
But had the Goddess clearly seen,
His form had fixed her fickle breast,
Her countless hoards would his have been,
And none remain’d to give the rest.