Thy matchless woof in his Hesperian wave?
Thou didst not need to taste Amyclæ’s bane,
And wouldst have tried Milesian art in vain.
With thee the lily and the privet pale
Compared, and Tibur’s whitest ivory fail.
The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore
Their hue, and pearls on Erythrean shore.
But, though the boon leave new-fall’n snows behind,
It is not purer than the donor’s mind.
I would prefer no Babylonian vest,