Classic Poem

When Daphne's lover here first wore the bays,
Eurotas' secret streams heard all his lays,
And holy Orpheus, Nature's busy child,
By headlong Hebrus his deep hymns compil'd;
Soft Petrarch--thaw'd by Laura's flames--did weep
On Tiber's banks, when she--proud fair!--could sleep;
Mosella boasts Ausonius, and the Thames
Doth murmur Sidney's Stella to her streams;
While Severn, swoln with joy and sorrow, wears