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Rh The master-piece of Art’s great master,
 * Mr. Praxiteles Browere,2

Whose trowel is a thing divine, Shall smile and bow, and promise there, And twenty-nine fine forms and faces
 * (The Corporation and the Mayor),

Linked hand in hand, like Loves and Graces,
 * Shall hover o’er it, grouped in air,

With wild pictorial dance and song; The song of happy bees in bowers, The dance of Guido’s graceful Hours, All scattering Flushing’s garden flowers3
 * Round the dear head they’ve loved so long.

I know that you are modest, know
 * That when you hear your merit’s praise,

Your cheeks’ quick blushes come and go, Lily and rose-leaf, sun and snow,
 * Like maidens’ on their bridal days.

I know that you would fain decline To aid me and the sacred Nine, In giving to the asking earth The story of your wit and worth; For if there be a fault to cloud
 * The brightness of your clear good sense,

It is, and be the fact allowed,
 * Your only failing—!

An amiable weakness—given
 * To justify the sad reflection,