Whoso enters at this portal
Shall find Love the one immortal.
Green the grove that hides the grotto
Over which is hung this motto;
Broidered paths of bloom and berry
Lead unto the monarch merry;

Birds above on leafy branches
Loosen lyric avalanches;
Bees go singing in the sunny,
Blossom-builded haunts of honey;
Flutes of brooks and lutes of grasses
Waken with each wind that passes;
All is fragrance, song and joy,
Made for one immortal boy!

Many seek this grotto hidden;
Welcome all, and none forbidden.
Soft the air and clear as amber;
Round the gate red roses clamber;
Day long, mirth and music fill it;
Night sends moon and star to thrill it.
Voices, visions, dreams of rapture,
There await, the heart to capture;

Full it is of faultless faces—
All the Muses and the Graces;
Poem, picture, flower and fancy,
Every form of necromancy;
Naught to worry or annoy,
Save the one immortal boy!

In this grotto lies the golden
Guest-book, full of legends olden,
Writ by lovers on its pages
Since the daybreak of the ages;
Paris, Helen, Petrarch, Laura,
Meleager, Heliodora,
All the glorious Amante
Sung of old by Tuscan Dante,
Names that shine in song and story
Crowd this volume with their glory,—
Tokens left by all the lovers
In the world, between the covers;
Yet the record cannot cloy
Love, the one immortal boy.

Eve in Eden, fresh and pearly,
Found on Earth this grotto early;
So, it came forever after
To be haunted by her laughter.
What a countless throng have tasted
Love therein ere life was wasted!
Blind they call the boy, in kindness,
Yet is theirs the only blindness.
He is sure of ear and vision,
Hearts he matches with precision;
That is Cupid's only duty
In this bower of bliss and beauty—
That the end of all employ
Is for one immortal boy!