"Memory it is that brings me to this -
Of a daughter--my one sweet own.
She grew a famous carver's model,
One of the fairest
And of the rarest:-
She sat for the figure as shown.

"But alas, she died in this distant place
Before I was warned to betake
Myself to her side! . . . And in love of my darling,
In love of the fame of her,
And the good name of her,
I do this for her sake."

Answer I gave not. Of that form
The carver was I at his side;
His child, my model, held so saintly,
Grand in feature,
Gross in nature,
In the dens of vice had died.



THE BACKGROUND AND THE FIGURE
(Lover's Ditty)



I think of the slope where the rabbits fed,
Of the periwinks' rockwork lair,