To her their fairest tints for dye,
But ever through her twirling thread
There spires one strand of warmest red,
Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
The stamp and warrant of her art;
With this Time's sickle she outwears,
And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.

"Harass her not; thy heat and stir
The greater coyness breed in her:
Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
Learning at last that Stygian Fate
Supples for him that knows to wait.
The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
Her love to him who pules and plains;
With proud, averted face she stands
To him who wooes with empty hands.
Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
Pull down thy barns and greater build;
The wood, the mountain, and the plain
Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
From fireside lone and trampling street
Let thy life garner daily wheat;
The epic of a man rehearse,
Be something better than thy verse,
Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
Shall court thy precious interviews,