Ah! well she knows, she wants the muses fire,
Some abler hand should strike the sounding lyre,
And with my Emma’s praises swell the strain:
Yet though my lay be wild and rude,
By friendship’s partial eye when view’d,
Emma may smile—no more I ask,
I will repay the pleasing task:
More than the applauding world her smile I prize,
Than the morn the mildness of her eyes.
CLARA