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That in this vale of tears not even
A Riker is complete perfection,
A most romantic detestation
Of power and place, of pay and ration;
A strange unwillingness to carry
The weight of honor on your shoulders,
For which you have been named, the very
Sensitive-plant of office-holders,
A shrinking bashfulness, whose grace
Gives beauty to your manly face.
Thus shades the green and glowing vine
The rough bark of the mountain-pine,
Thus round her freedom’s waking steel
Harmodius wreathed his country’s myrtle:
And thus the golden lemon’s peel
Gives fragrance to a bowl of turtle.

True, “many a flower,” the poet sings,
“Is born to blush unseen;”
But you, although you blush, are not
The flower the poets mean.
In vain you wooed a lowlier lot;
In vain you clipped your eagle-wings—
Talents like yours are not forgot
And buried with earth’s common things.
No! my dear Riker, I would give
My laurels, living and to live,
Or as much cash as you could raise on
Their value, by hypothecation,