The hour when Love unbound it.
In his adoration of female beauty, he often holds the lustrous gem as a foil to the exceeding charms of woman, or to lift her to higher esteem by holding her, for preciousness, above the gem. Beyond all other things most lovely, only woman was lovelier yet. In "To weave a Garland for the Rose," he writes:
Where is the pearl whose orient lustre
Would not, beside thee, look less bright?
And in one of the "Odes to Nea," he expresses the jealous regard of love thus:
If I were yonder conch of gold
And thou the pearl within it placed,
I would not let an eye behold
The sacred gem my arms embraced.
Of the threads in which the woof of "The Genius of Harmony" is woven, there is one that sings thus to the passing of the shuttle: