I had been reading what you have written of your idleness,
When I came upon certain worthier selections
From the month's work of our industrious versifiers—
Those who bring their ingenious tapestries to such soft perfection,
Borrowing majesty from a true likeness to natural splendor:
Tracery of branches etched upon a cold sky, a leaf, a flower.

“But what,” I then said to myself, “of him who goes,
“Himself surpassing flowers, a flower in that peculiar way which the choice follows?”
For certainly they take their daring in words carrying splendor,
And certainly his verse is crimson when they speak of the rose.
So I come deliberately to the most exquisite praise
I have imagined of any living thing—which is now manifest.


 = Leon Branton