Born in Aspasia’s fost’ring land
My finish’d form I first display’d
And felt my plumy wings expand
While gazing on the beauteous maid.
No sunshine glow’d upon the scene
With gentle warmth those wings to dry:
Yet fair each painted pinion grew
Beneath the lustre of her eye.
No zephyr rose with gentle gale
To fill my infant frame with air;
But fann’d by fair Aspasia’s breath,
The zephyr’s gale I well might spare.
No rose or lily near me grew
In which my downy limbs might rest;
But these in brighter tints I found
On the fair virgin’s face & breast.
Thus Nature with indulgent care
Propitious grac’d my natal hour;
And with superior sweetness gave
The gale, the sunshine, and the Flow’r!