With mirth of minstrelsy and dance,
Sped Poesy’s enchanted craft;
The odorous gale was blowing abaft
Her silken sails, as on she goes,
Doth still to us faint echoes waft
Of ballades, triolets, rondeaux.
But tell me with what countenance
Ye seek on modern rhymes to graft
Those tender shoots of old Romance—
Romance that now is only chaffed?