Explore "Rondeau. To Austin Dobson" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Your dainty Muse her form arrays / In soft brocades of bygone days.
She walks old gardens where the dews / Gem sundials and trim-cut yews / And tremble on the tulip's blaze.
The magic scent her charm conveys / Which lives on when the rose decays.
She had her portrait done by Greuze -- / Your dainty Muse!
Mine's hardier -- walks life's muddy ways / Barefooted; preaches, sometimes prays, / Is modern, is advanced, has views; / Goes in for lectures, reads the news, / And sends her homespun verse to praise / Your dainty Muse!