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| LITTLE charm of placid mien, | |
| Miniature of Beauty’s Queen, | |
| Numbering years, a scanty nine, | |
| Stealing hearts without design, | |
| Young inveigler, fond in wiles, | 5 |
| Prone to mirth, profuse in smiles, | |
| Yet a novice in disdain, | |
| Pleasure giving without pain, | |
| Still caressing, still caressed, | |
| Thou and all thy lovers blessed, | 10 |
| Never teased, and never teasing, | |
| Oh for ever pleased and pleasing! | |
| Hither, British Muse of mine, | |
| Hither, all the Grecian Nine, | |
| With the lovely Graces Three, | 15 |
| And your promised nursling see: | |
| Figure on her waxen mind | |
| Images of life refined; | |
| Make it as a garden gay, | |
| Every bud of thought display, | 20 |
| Till, improving year by year, | |
| The whole culture shall appear, | |
| Voice, and speech, and action, rising, | |
| All to human sense surprising. | |
| Is the silken web so thin | 25 |
| As the texture of her skin? | |
| Can the lily and the rose | |
| Such unsullied hue disclose? | |
| Are the violets so blue | |
| As her veins exposed to view? | 30 |
| Do the stars in wintry sky | |
| Twinkle brighter than her eye? | |
| Has the morning lark a throat | |
| Sounding sweeter than her note? | |
| Who e’er knew the like before thee? | 35 |
| They who knew the nymph that bore thee. | |
| From thy pastime and thy toys, | |
| From thy harmless cares and joys, | |
| Give me now a moment’s time: | |
| When thou shalt attain thy prime, | 40 |
| And thy bosom feel desire, | |
| Love the likeness of thy sire, | |
| One ordained through life to prove | |
| Still thy glory, still thy love. | |
| Like thy sister, and like thee, | 45 |
| Let thy nurtured daughters be: | |
| Semblance of the fair who bore thee. | |
| Trace the pattern set before thee, | |
| Where the Liffy meets the main, | |
| Has thy sister heard my strain; | 50 |
| From the Liffy to the Thames, | |
| Minstrel echoes, sing their names, | |
| Wafting to the willing ear | |
| Many a cadence sweet to hear, | |
| Smooth as gently breathing gales | 55 |
| O’er the ocean and the vales, | |
| While the vessel calmly glides | |
| O’er the level glassy tides, | |
| While the summer flowers are springing, | |
| And the new-fledged birds are singing. | 60 |
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