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| TANAGRA! think not I forget | |
| Thy beautifully-storey’d streets; | |
| Be sure my memory bathes yet | |
| In clear Thermodon, and yet greets | |
| The blythe and liberal shepherd boy, | 5 |
| Whose sunny bosom swells with joy | |
| When we accept his matted rushes | |
| Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes. | |
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| I promise to bring back with me | |
| What thou with transport wilt receive, | 10 |
| The only proper gift for thee, | |
| Of which no mortal shall bereave | |
| In later times thy mouldering walls, | |
| Until the last old turret falls; | |
| A crown, a crown from Athens won, | 15 |
| A crown no god can wear, beside Latona’s son. | |
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| There may be cities who refuse | |
| To their own child the honours due, | |
| And look ungently on the Muse; | |
| But ever shall those cities rue | 20 |
| The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, | |
| Offering no nourishment, no rest, | |
| To that young head which soon shall rise | |
| Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies. | |
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| Sweetly where cavern’d Dirce flows | 25 |
| Do white-arm’d maidens chaunt my lay, | |
| Flapping the while with laurel-rose | |
| The honey-gathering tribes away; | |
| And sweetly, sweetly, Attick tongues | |
| Lisp your Corinna’s early songs; | 30 |
| To her with feet more graceful come | |
| The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. | |
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| O let thy children lean aslant | |
| Against the tender mother’s knee, | |
| And gaze into her face, and want | 35 |
| To know what magic there can be | |
| In words that urge some eyes to dance, | |
| While others as in holy trance | |
| Look up to heaven; be such my praise! | |
| Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphick bays. | 40 |
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