O Beauty is too holy to be handled
By the indiscriminate, rude, critic-touch!
Gently be its timorous, blushing blossoms dandled
On the fringed boughs, coy to the breezes’ clutch;
Yea the ransack’d Past’s aroma should dwell on it,
While the coronetted Future, breathing, fann’d it:
The flowers of love garden its paths and throng it,
And Fancy’s cloud-like sails on lone stars land it:
It should be the idea’s gradual unfolding,
Whose rosebud leaves astonish niggard Hope:
It should be the delicate and fleece-like moulding
That snowy clouds build on the heaven’s blue scope:
It should be,—who can say except the heart?
It should be all, nor lovelier than thou art.