The graces marked the hour, when thou
Didst leave thine ante-natal rest,
Without a cry to heave a breast
Which never ached from then till now.

That vivid soul then first unsealed
Would be, they knew, a torch to wave
Within a chill and dusky cave
Whose crystals else were unrevealed.

That fine small mouth they wreathed so well
In rosy curves, would rouse to arms
A troop then bound in slumber-charms;
Such notes they gave the magic shell.

Those straying fingerlets, that clutched
At good and bad, they so did glove,
That they might pick the flowers of love,
Unscathed, from every briar they touched.

The bounteous sisters did ordain,
That thou one day with jest and whim
Should'st rain thy merriment on him
Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain.

For haply on that night they spied
A sickly student at his books,
Who having basked in loving looks
Was freezing into barren pride.

His squalid discontent they saw,
And, for that he had worshipped them
With incense and with anadem,
They willed his wintry world should thaw;

And at thy cradle did decree
That fifteen years should pass, and thou
Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow
Favonian airs of mirth and glee.