Three graces still attend me, since the day

Your step across my graceless threshold came:

Reverence, and Gratitude, and Love, their name.

Reverence, whose gaze fears from the ground to stray,

And bows its head, and sues to you to lay

Your foot thereon, and keep my base self down:

Next, Gratitude, that, bolder, by degrees

Creeps up the folds of wedlock’s rescuing gown,

To make a circling fondness round your knees;

And lastly, Love, which from that low perch sees

Chaste lips, and tender eyes, and tresses brown,

And, darting upward, finds a home with these.

So stand we level in that high embrace,

And I have all your glory on my face.