I know there was once when I portrayed you

With a slip of infatuated tongue

A blissful muse floating on drops of dew,

Percolating in words divinely young.

But ‘twas I that should behold heaven’s grace.

To find worshippers for your tepid heart,

Or seek laughter in that porcelain face,

Is a calling no God force me part.

What have I inspir’d, that you conquered not?

Nature herself spins poems in your wake.

Condemned as sculptor to ridicule’s lot,

I know not what shape my hands’ clay will make.

These thoughts are your own, taken by your might.

Apollo’s muse, goddess in her own right