PRESENTED BY LORD ELGIN.
HE who, rais’d high o’er war’s turmoils,
Rescued from Time his richest spoils,
Had laid them at thy feet, O Rose!
But Britain cried, To me belong
Trophies beneath whose shadows sung
The choir of Pallas where Ilissus flows.
Of purest alabaster, well
Expressing what our speech would tell,
Beauteous, but somewhat less divine
Than Pheidias, taught by Pallas, plan’d,
Elgin presents the only hand
That throbs not at the slightest touch of thine.