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| AWAKE, ye forms of verse divine! | |
| Painting! descend on canvas wing,— | |
| And hover o’er my head, Design! | |
| Your son, your glorious son, I sing; | |
| At Trumbull’s name I break my sloth, | 5 |
| To load him with poetic riches: | |
| The Titian of a table-cloth! | |
| The Guido of a pair of breeches! | |
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| Come, star-eyed maid, Equality! | |
| In thine adorer’s praise I revel; | 10 |
| Who brings, so fierce his love to thee, | |
| All forms and faces to a level: | |
| Old, young, great, small, the grave, the gay, | |
| Each man might swear the next his brother, | |
| And there they stand in dread array, | 15 |
| To fire their votes at one another. | |
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| How bright their buttons shine! how straight | |
| Their coat-flaps fall in plaited grace! | |
| How smooth the hair on every pate! | |
| How vacant each immortal face! | 20 |
| And then the tints, the shade, the flush, | |
| (I wrong them with a strain too humble), | |
| Not mighty Sherred’s strength of brush | |
| Can match thy glowing hues, my Trumbull! | |
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| Go on, great painter! dare be dull— | 25 |
| No longer after Nature dangle; | |
| Call rectilinear beautiful; | |
| Find grace and freedom in an angle; | |
| Pour on the red, the green, the yellow, | |
| “Paint till a horse may mire upon it,” | 30 |
| And, while I ’ve strength to write or bellow, | |
| I ’ll sound your praises in a sonnet. | |
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