The names of lyric poets appear in the mosaic ceiling vaults. On the stairhall side are the names of six Americans: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882),  James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) ,John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892), William Cullen Bryant  (1794–1878), Walt Whitman (1819–1892), and Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).  Names of British  and European poets are on the opposite side: Robert Browning (1812–1889), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), Alfred de Musset (1810–1857), Victor Hugo (1802–1885), and Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)). Names of distinguished poets from the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods occupy the spaces along the center of the vault: Theocritus (3rd century B.C.), Pindar (522–443 B.C.), Anacreon (570–488 B.C.) Sappho (ca.630– ca. 570 B.C), Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84–ca.54 B.C.)Horace (65–8 B.C.), Petrarch (1304 –1374), and Pierre de Ronsard (1524– 1585).