TO G. I.
AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
The leaf you plucked from Shakespeare’s garden plot,
And sent me, my most estimable friend,
The voyage of the salt sea injured not.
Green as it grew upon its native spot,
It nestled ’mid the kindly words you penned.
The poet’s genius, free from flaw or blot,
In which Melpomene found naught to mend,
My fancy with this leaflet loves to blend;
But, though with care I guard it all my days,
In fret of time ’twill fade and fall away,
Like hope, once fresh, will crumble to decay.
Not so our Dramatist’s perennial bays;
Not so the bloom and sunshine of his Plays,
Rejoicing in their immortality.