Wherefore the praise, the pause
Of nearly unbelieving exclamation
If one is sight-sweet in our eyes
And one a taste of revelation
To our understanding's pious palate?

What less to common witness
Can sincerity provide
Than these earthly examples
How the swell of universal pride
Is with our social heart incorporate?

Or think we never then to hail,
Save in chimerical apostrophe,
The subjects of our chronic fervours:
Think we then never, none, to see
Eye-wonted what we most have affirmed?

It is a sorry rhetoric
That thus pairs the note of tribute
With the marvelling look and mind,
And calls the recognition mute
Which cannot gasp.

And we are sorry swains of parlance
If but the metaphor with ghostly face
Invites the generous word
And all must go in rational disgrace
Whom verity has made familiar.