Treasury of English Sonnets
TO RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE.
CAMBRIDGE, with whom, my pilot and my guide,
Pleased I have traversed thy Sabrina's flood,
Both where she foams impetuous, soiled with mud,
And where she peaceful rolls her golden tide;
Never, O never let ambition's pride,
(Too oft pretexèd with our country's good,)
And tinselled pomp, despised when understood,
Or thirst of wealth thee from her banks divide!
Reflect how calmly, like her infant wave,
Flows the clear current of a private life;
See the wide public stream, by tempests tost,
Of every changing wind the sport or slave,
Soiled with corruption, vexed with party strife,
Covered with wrecks of peace and honour lost.
THEN I behold thee, blameless Williamson,
Wrecked like an infant on a savage shore,
While others round on borrowed pinions soar,
My busy fancy calls thy thread misspun;
Till Faith instructs me the deceit to shun,
While thus she speaks: "Those wings that from the store
Of virtue were not lent, howe'er they bore
In this gross air, will melt when near the sun.
The truly ambitious wait for Nature's time,
Content by certain though by slow degrees
To mount above the reach of vulgar flight;
Nor is that man confined to this low clime
Who but the extremest skirts of glory sees,
And hears celestial echoes with delight.'
ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST.
IN vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire:
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine,
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear,
To warm their little loves the birds complain :
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.
ANNIVERSARY.
FEB. 23, 1795
PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen
When Time had stolen his three-and-twentieth
year:
Say, shall not I then shed one tuneful tear,
Robbed by the thief of three-score years and ten?
No! for the foes of all life-lengthened men,
Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near;
Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear
Hold unimpaired their weak yet wonted reign:
Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can stray;
Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring:
BEING OF BEINGS! yes, that silent lay
Which musing Gratitude delights to sing,
Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey,
And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing.
WRITTEN AFTER SEEING WILTON-HOUSE.
`ROM Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic Art
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers,
Its living hues where the warm pencil pours,
And breathing forms from the rude marble start,
How to life's humbler scene can I depart!
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers,
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours!
Vain the complaint; for Fancy can impart
(To Fate superior, and to Fortune's doom)
Whate'er adorns the stately-storied hall:
She, 'mid the dungeon's solitary gloom,
Can dress the Graces in their Attic pall;
Bid the green landscape's vernal beauty bloom,
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall.
WRITTEN AT WINSLADE IN HAMPSHIRE.
INSLADE, thy beech-capped hills, with waving grain
Mantled, thy chequered views of wood and lawn,
Whilom could charm, or when the gradual dawn
'Gan the gray mist with orient purple stain,
Or evening glimmered o'er the folded train:
The fairest landscapes whence my Muse has drawn,
Too free with servile courtly phrase to fawn,
Too weak to try the buskin's stately strain.
Yet now no more thy slopes of beech and corn,
Nor views invite, since he far distant strays.
With whom I traced their sweets at eve and morn,
From Albion far, to cull Hesperian bays.
In this alone they please, howe'er forlorn,
That still they can recall those happier days.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF
EEM not devoid of elegance the sage,
By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled,
Of painful pedantry the poring child,
Who turns of these proud domes the historic page,
Now sunk by Time and Henry's fiercer rage.
Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled
On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage
His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled,
Intent. While cloistered Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores
New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores.
Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers.
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