To Claudius Popelin

In fragile glass, within the lead's embrace,
Old Masters painted lords of high degree
Turning their chaperons full piously,
And bowed in prayer, as though of bourgeois race.

The breviary's page some loved to grace
With saints and ornaments a joy to see,
Or made to glow, by pliant touch and free,
With arabesques the ewer's bellied space.

To-day, Claudius, their rival and their son,
Reviving in himself their works sublime,
On lasting metal has his triumphs won;

And hence, beneath the enamel of my rhyme,
I would keep green upon his brow alway,
For future ages, the heroic Bay.