The Graces

Written for Valentine’s Day and addressed to Thalia, Aglaia, and Euphrosyne

Three Graces met my dazzled sight
 How can I choose a Valentine,
When all the charms that give delight
 And rule our hearts in each combine

Thalia has ev’ry art to please,
 Politeness, learning, wit and ease.
High cultivated powers of mind,
 To beauty’s fairest forms are join’d

A soul sprung from the realms of taste,
 With fancy’s brightest visions grac’d — 
From distant lands a stranger came,
 Aglaia is the maiden’s name.

Her lovely form, her face so fair,
With spring’s mild radiance may compare,
And each unguarded heart ensnare.
If some blest youth — attend the strain!
The empire of thy soul shall gain;
Ne’er let the dark’ning mist of pride,
The snowdrop of affection hide,
But cull the transient flower;
For planted in thy bosom know!
The pearly bloom shall ever blow,
Nor dread a withering hour.

But who can justly sing of thee,
Thou child of mirth, Euphrosyne!
Sweet goddess of the Sylphic mien!
Blest antidote against the spleen.

Thy playful wit, thy lyric strain,
Our hearts confine in pleasure’s chain;
Thy sprightly footsteps lead our eye
Light in the airy dance they fly;
Like gossamer in summer’s day,
Or films which in the sunbeams play.

E’en Coridon — tho’ cold as stone,
Thy lively sportive pen shall own;
Affected was the averted eye,
Assum’d that air of gravity:
His heart bore witness to the praise,
Which he alone refused thy lays.

Nature her gifts to thee profuse,
Has offer’d with unsparing hand,
And plac’d her realms at thy command
The grant with cultur’d judgment use.

Ictinus

February 1806