Time was when Avon's unrenownèd stream,
Save for its beauty, unregarded flowed;
Once Arno even as other rivers glowed,
For then it had not mirrored Dante's dream.
How vague the gray Levantine sea did seem
Ere Homer charted all the stormy road!
The Psalmist who by Babylon abode
Forever linked with grief the willow's gleam.

Think you there are no other waters fit
To be rechristened with a poet's name?
Is Nature bankrupt?—man's last beacon lit?
Believe it never! Unborn bards such fame
On undiscovered rivers may bestow
As shall to fable banish Nile and Po.