n 1 6 &- %. vi I (k 1 6 6 6, c C, ,) , 4041 AiK 17 le:J 7777 "4W:"A j XL s; ~t 7 I.11,4 47 ~ ~;, 117o Tr 4 A 44 A 44444,4, 44 7. 444~ 44 44 344 44 4< I 44 4 vs 4 4 4 V ~ 44t 4 >4 N 4 >1 444 44 4444 4 4 a I 11 F 1, V17, 6, C", ', "W9", && U - -.'. -7 .,. 11, .m v I v WI e.,Ii: '! m / 8-8-9. 114 1.I, ENGLISH SONNETS. I ENGLISH SONNETS BY POETS OF THE PAST EDITED BY SAMUEL WADDINGTON - SECOND EDITION 'Laborum dulce lenimen.'-HOR. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS YORK STREET COVENT GARDEN I888 PM"_ - -W w"w pw, CMISWICK PkKM; —C. WMITTINGHAM AND) CO., TOOICS COURT,' CHIANCERY LANJL TO MDante (Babriet lo ecttt THIS VOLUME IS, BY PERMISSION, P~retaces HE following selection has been prepared for publication as a companion volume to IIEnglish Sonnets by Living Writers:"-and it is hoped that in these two anthologies, the one including the authors of the Past and the other those of the Present, the whole of our best English sonnet-literature will be found to be fairly represented. Several poets and sonneteers that have been omitted,-in a few instances somewhat strangely omitted,-from previous selections, are here, for the first time, allowed to occupy that space to which they are so justly entitled, and from which they have apparently been driven by supplanters of a lower rank. The Editor would especially call attention to the mI PREFACE. two plaintive, yet noble, sonnets by Robert Burns (pp. 62-3): the first of which, beginningSing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strainis surely one of the sweetest and most pathetic of all our sonnets, and certainly deserving of a place in all future sonnet-anthologies. Among other poets not included in previous selections, who are represented in the following pages, may be mentioned Robert Herrick, whose sonnets, though irregular in form, are nevertheless works of much beauty, and are written after the manner of those of his contemporary William Habington, the author of Casfara, and one of the most productive sonneteers of that age. The reader will also find sonnets by Dean Milman; George Eliot; Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet; Henry Francis Cary, the well-known translator of Dante; William Motherwell; Thomas Noel, the author of The Pauper's Drive and other poems; John Anster; George Morine, &c. &c. It has been deemed advisable to relegate to thb Notes at the end of the volume, specimens of the work of two or three authors whose poems are of interest only in connection with the history of the Sonnet, PRBFA CE. ix and are not such as would afford pleasure to ordinary modern readers. Amongst these will be found examples of the compositions of Sir Thomas Wyatt and his friend the Earl of Surrey, the earliest writers in English of this form of verse. Also the less famous of Blanco White's two sonnets will be found at page 232;-his Night and Death is, of course, given in the body of the book, As those who are well acquainted with the late Rev. Alexander Dyce's pleasant Selection of sonnets will remember that he included a large number by John Bamphylde and by Miss Anna Seward, the Editor would take this opportunity of explaining that he has omitted these sonneteers advisedly, and after due consideration of their respective merits and defects. And this observation applies also to a few other minor poets such as Philip Ayres, Thomas Edwards, Walsh, Chapman, Kirke White, Beddoes, &c. &c. A recent writer in the "Westminster Review" has pointed out that " the Sonnet is beginning to take the same place amongst us, making allowance for altered circumstances, as the Epigram did with the Greeks: " and of both these kinds of composition it may be reb x PREFACE. marked, in the words of an old author, that although a little thing gives perfection, perfection is not a little thing. In both " style is put under high pressure," and perhaps no one has stated this better, or more forcibly, than the present Lord Lytton, who writes,-" It (the Sonnet) isa form of verse which most severely tests the art of the poet, It admits of no mediocrity. It must be written with the fist instead of the finger; and yet with a delicacy of manipulation of which none but the finest and most skilful finger is capable." And to this may be added that the necessity of a lyric unity both of thought and design, which is the essential quality of the Sonnet, does not in any degree lessen the difficulty of its composition. For whether it be made to consist of three parts, like the three propositions of a syllogism,-or be divided into two sections after the manner of the Italian writers,-or be composed in the image (to use Wordsworth's phrase) of an orbicular body-a sphere, or a dew-drop,-in all cases one idea, one thought, one mood, must pervade and govern the whole, and must endow it with life and individuality. Perhaps it is mainly in this quality of oneness, and in the necessity of being concise in so limited a space, PREFACE. xi that an answer will be found to the question so often asked, What is the especial merit of "this curiously favourite and fortunate form of verse?" But, indeed, no answer is necessary when one meets with such a charming example of the form as the following sonnet, addressed by a living sonneteer to Wordsworth, which should have been included in our previous volume:' So long as Duddon 'twixt his cloud-girt walls Thridding the woody chambers of the hills Warbles from vaulted grot and pebbled halls Farewell or welcome to the meadow rills; So long as linnets chant low madrigals Near that brown nook the labourer whistling tills, Or the late-reddening apple forms and falls Mid dewy brakes the autumnal redbreast thrills,So long, last poet of the great old race, Shall thy broad song through England's bosom roll, A river singing anthems in its place, And be to later England as a soul. Glory to Him who made thee, and increase To them that hear thy word, of love and peace! ' The Editor begs to thank once more the owners of the copyright of the sonnets published during recent years, for kindly allowing him to include them in his selection. 47, CONNAUGHT STREET, HYDE PARK, W. Augwst, x88i. 1 CONTENTS. PREFACE. x. Easter Morning a. Willing Bondage. 3. True Beauty 4. Like as a ship that through the ocean wide... 5. With how sad steps, 0 moon, thou climb'st the skies. 6. Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance. 7. Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve....... 8. A Vision upon the Faery Queen..... 9. The Constancy of Love. to. Favour....... ix. Pity refusing my poor love to feed...... x2. The Last Chance. 13. To the River Ankor. 14. To Sleep....... P Edmund Senser... Edmund Spenser Edmund Spfenser Edmund Snser.... Sir Phlitz Sidney.. Sir Philii Sidney.. Sir Philip Sidney.. Sir Walter Ralegh... oashua Sylvester. Henry Constable.. Henry Constable.. Michael Drayon.. Michael Drayton. Samuel Daniel.... AGE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Io 12 13 '4 xiv CONTENTS. 15. Remembrance.... x6. Sunshine and Cloud. 17. The True and the False 18. The World's Way... xg. Life's Autumn... 20. The Triumph of Death 2X. The Garden of Love. 22. The forward Violet thus did I chide.. 23. Hope against Hope... 24. The Beauty of Beauties 2S. True Love...... 26. A Picture.. 27. Soul and Body..... a8. Content....... 29. The Talent... 30. To Death 3I. Mary Magdalen 3t. Human Frailty...... 33. Sweet Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train 34. Before a Poem of Irene 35. No Trust in Time.. 36. Alexis, here she stayed; among these pines. 37. Trust not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold 38. Down in a valley, by a forest's side 39. A rose, as fair as ever saw the North..... William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. William Shakespfeare. William Shakes2peare. Barnabe Barnes. Barnabe Barnes. yohn Donne.. William Drummond. William Drummond. William Drummond. William Drummond. William Drummond. William Drummond. PAGE 15 s6. 7 x8 19 ao 21 22 23 25 26. 27 28 ~ 29 30 ~ 31. 32 33 * 34 35. 36 William Drummond'.. William Browne... 37 38 William Browns... 39 CONTENTS. xv PAGE 40. I sing of brooks,of blossoms, birds, and bowers.. 41. You say I love not 'cause I do not play. 42. Love........ 43. Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round. 44. My God, where is that ancient heat towards Thee....... 45. On his Blindness.... 46. Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth. 47. The Nightingale. 48. On the late Massacre in Piedmont..... 49. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son.... 50. When the Assault was intended to the City.. 5. On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson....... 52. The Meaning of Life.. 53. To Dampier...... 54. On the Death of Richard West....... 55. Anniversary....... 56. On Bathing...... 57. On Revisiting the River Lodon... Robert Herrick... 40 Robert Herrick..... 41 George Herbert..... 42 George Herbert..... 43 George Herbert.... 44 y)ohn Milton..... 45 oohn Milton...... 46 oyohn Milton...... 47.John Milton.... 48 7ohn Milton...... 49 john Milton...... 50 yohn Milton...... 5L Benjamin Stillinglet.. 52 Benjamin Stillingfleet.. 3 Thomas Gray..... c54 William Mason.... 55 Thomas Warton.... 56 Thomas Warton.... 57 xvi CONTENTS. 58. On Dugdale's 'Monasticon' 59. To Mary Unwin 60. The River Arun 6r. The Close of Spring... 62. Sing on, sweet thrush 63. On the Death of Robert Riddel...... 64. On Parting with his Books 65. Echo and Silence.. 66. Absence....... 67. Ostend... 68. Valclusa....... 69. At Lemnos...... 70. Could then the babes from yon unsheltered cot. 7X. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free.. 72. Upon Westminster Bridge. 73. England and Switzerland 74. Surprised by Joy.. 75. Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.. 76. How sweet it is when mother Fancy rocks, 77. Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room.. 78. The world is too much with us, late and soon 79. London, 1802.. 80. On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic. Thomas Warton William Caow.er Charlotte Smith Charlotte Smith Robert Burns PAGE 58 59 60 6x. 62 Robert Burns.. William Rosco.. Sir S. Egerton Brydges. William Lisle Bowles Witliam Lisle Bowles Thomas Russell.. Thomas Russell... 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 Thomas Russell.... 70 William Wordsworth William Wordsworth William Wordsworth William Wordsworth 71 72 73 74 William Wordsworth,.. 75 William Wordsworth William Wordsworth 76 77 78 79 80 William Wordsworth.. William Wordsworth.. William Wordsworth '. CONTENTS. Xmii 81. A Poet I-He hath put his heart to school... William Words 82. I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret...... William Words 83. I thought of thee, my partner and my guide.. William Words 84. November, 1806.... William Words 85. London, 1802..... William Worde 86. A Parsonage in Oxfordshire William Worda 87. Nature....... Samuel Taylor 88. Fancy in Nubibus... Samuel Taylor 89. The Autumnal Moon.. Samuel Taylor go. Farewell to Love... Samuel Taylor 91. I ask not riches, and I ask not power..... Henry Francis 92. The Mariner.... Robert Southy 93. To a Friend.... - Charles Lamb 94. To Innocence..... Charles Lamb 95. In Christian world Mary the garland wears.. Charles Lamb 96. Night and Death... Blanco White 97. Eternal and Omnipotent Unseen..... Horace Smith 98. On the Statue of a Piping Faun........ Horace Smith 99. On a Green-House... Horace Smith zoo. The Harvest Moon... Lord Thurlow zo2. To a Water Bird.... Lord Thurlow xoa. To Amoret..... Lord Thurlow 0o3. Fountain's Abbey... Ebenezer Elliot I Wuorth,.. 'AGB 8z -worth. 82 worth.. 83,wortk.. 8 worth.. 85 rworth.. 86 'Coleridge. 87 Coleridge. 88 Coleridge. 89 Coleridge. 90 Cary.. 91...... 92. 93..... 94......95..,... 96 i...... 97..... 98..... 99.... O. o...... lOt...... 20.... 103!... ro3 xviii CONTENTS. 104. The Grasshopper and the Cricket........ Leigh Hunt I05. The Nile.... Leigh Hunt. xo6. Orford Castle.....Bernard Barton 107. The butterfly, which sports on gaudy wing... Bernard Barton xo8. Winter........ Bernard Barton o19. Past the grey tombs what space an arrow flies. Charles Strong xIo. Is this the spot where Rome's eternal foe.. Charles Strong. xzx. Pacing, as I was wont, on day of rest..... Charles Strong 1z2. Ere the wide waters on my view had smiled... Charles Strong. 1x3. 'Twas near the walls that gird the imperial town. Charles Strong. 114. O Thou I whose golden reins curb steeds of fire Charles Strong. xs5. The Evening Cloud... 7ohn Wilson. xx6. Go up among the mountains, when the storm. yohn Wilson. 1x7. The Tomb of Charlemagne Sir Aubrey de V rix. The Landrail..... Sir Aubrey de V x19. Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe.......Lord Byron 20o. Lake Leman.... Lord Byron 2Ax. Chillon........ Lord Byron 122. The Fire-fly.... Bryan Waller P 123. A Still Place..... Bryan Waler P PAGE.... I04.. 10.... zo6.... 067.... o1 *.,. lo9 * 1IO III.. X1 ~ 113.... 114.... IIS......t r6 ere... 117 ere... xx8 )rocter 'rocter I19 I20 I2t 122 123 CONTENTS. 124. Life........ I25. Ye hasten to the dead I what seek ye there 126. To the Nile... 127. Ozymandias.. r28. Political Greatness 129. To Wordsworth.. 130. The Love of God, I. X3x.,,,, II... 132. Huntspill Tower.... 133. Oxford....... 134. At Hooker's Tomb 135. The Thrush's Nest I36. Flight of the Spirit X37. The Human Seasons x38. On the Grasshopper and Cricket...... 139. On Chapman's Homer. 40o. Addressed to Haydon. 14x. To one who has been long in city pent 142. Solitude........ 143. Happy is England I I could be content... 144. To Sleep...... 145. Keats's Last Sonnet. 146. Liberty........ 147. May, 1840..... 148. November...... 149. To a Deaf and Dumb Little Girl Thomas Doubleday Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Dean Milman.. Dean Milman:ohn Keble.... yohn Keble...:yohn Keble... yohn Clare... Felicia Hemans yohn Keats yohn Keats... _John Keats.... yohn Keats. ax PAGE. x24. 125. 126. 127 ~. 28. 129. 130..31 132. 133. X34.~ 35. I36 ~ 137. 138. 139 1. 40 7ohn Keats....... 41 yohn Keats... 42 yohn Keats... yohn Keats... yohn Keats... Hartley Coleridge. Hartley Coleridge. Hartley Coleridge. Hartley Coleridge. 143 244 245 146 147 148 149 xX CONTENTS. PAGE 150. When we were idlers with the loitering rills. Hartley Colerige.... 15 151. To a Lofty Beauty... Hartley Coleridge.... 5 52a. The First Man.... artley Coleridge.... 15 153. A Confession..... Hartley Coleridge.. 53 154. Homer....... Hartley Coleridge.... 54 155. Whither is gone the wisdom and the power.. Hartley Coleridge... 55 x56. We parted on the mountains, as two streams. Hartley Coleridge.. 56 I57. The Lone Thorn.... William Motherwell... 157 i58. Autumn....... Thomas Hood...... 58 159. Silence....... Thomas Hood...... 59 lro. It is not death that sometime in a sigh.. Thomas Hood...... 60 t6x. A Sonnet to a Sonnet.. Thomas Hood...... 6I x62. Joy in Sorrow..... Chauncy Hare Townshend. I62 x63. Hidden Joys....... Samuel Laman Blanchard x63 164. Pater Vester Pascit Ilia. Robert StepAhen Hawker.. 164 x65. The Twain.......Robert Stephen Hawker. 165 x66. Love........ Helena C. Von Ranke.. i66 x67. The Lattice at Sunrise.. Charles Tennyson Turner. z67 z68. On Startling some Pigeons Charles Tennyson Turner. i68 i69. Time and Twilight... Charles Tennyson Turner. 169 x70. It was her first sweet child Charles Tennyson Turner.?70 1x7. A Summer Twilight... Charles Tennyson Turner. 171 17a. The Quiet Tide near Ardrossan...... Charles Tennyson Turner. 172 x73. Letty's Globe..... Chares Tennyson Turner. 173 174. The Forest Glade... Charles Tennyson Turner. I74 175. The Gossamer-Light. Charles Tennyson Turner. 175 CONTENTS. xxi PAGE 176. In and out of the PineWood...... Charles Tennyson Turner. 176 177. Irreparableness.... Elizabeth Barrett Browning 177 178. Grief........ Elizabeth Barrett Browning 178 179. ]finite and Infinite... Elizabeth Barrett Browning 179 80o. Comfort............ Elizabeth Barrett Browning 18o x8x. Futurity...... Elizabeth Barrett Browning x8i 182. The Prospect..... Elizabeth Barrett Browning x82 183. I thought once how Theocritus had sung. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 183 184. My own beloved, who hast lifted me..... Elizabeth Barrett Browning 184 185. If thou must love me, let it be for nought... Elizabeth Barrett Browning z85 186. Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead...... Elizabeth Barrett Browning x86 187. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.. Elizabeth Barrett Browning x87 x88. Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers.. Elizabeth Barrett Browning i88 x89. If I might choose, where my tired limbs shall lie yohn Anster...... I89 x9o. To the British Oak... Charles Crocker..... 9go 191. Not war, nor hurrying troops from plain to plain Henry Alford..... x9g 192. The Master's Call... Henry Alford..... 92 193. But deck the board;-for hither comes a band. Henry Alford..... 93 x94. To Mary........... Henry Alford......... 94 x95. Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome...... Arthur Henry Hallam.. z95., xxii CONTENTS. PAGE 196. Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart.. Arthur Henry Hallasm. 96 z97. To the Authoress of "Our Village............Charles Kingsley 1 97 z98. On the Ramparts at Angouleme....Frederick William Fa~er 198 spy. Our thoughts are greater than ourselves, our dreams.......... 2oo. Like a musician that with flying finger.... 2os. Sad soul, whom God, resuming what He gave. so2. Solitude........... 203. Time's Waves........ 204. The Aconite..... 2o5. Beauty still walketh on the earth and air. 2o6i. To America 207. To a Friend in Bereavement........... 2o8. Ad Matrem, i862 209. Ad Matrem, i864... wro. Ad Matrem, 1870 ast. Brother and Sister 212. Brother and Sister 2I3. A Disappointment... 214. To a Brooklet....... 2z5. The Luggie ss6. -Sunset....... Notes............. Fredericke William Fab~er 19 -William Caldwell Roscoe. soo William Caldwell Roscoe Thomas Noel.... Thomas Noel.... Thoma" Noel.... 2o1 202 203 204 A lexander Smith..... 205 Sydney Dolell............o Sydney Dobell............07 7ulian Fame.............08 fulian Fane.............og.7ulian Fane............210 Georg~e Eliot.............211 George Eliot.............212 Alice Mary B lun t. 253 David Gray.............224 David Gray.............S George Moa-ine...........16...... 219 CORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you havefrowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Cambens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle-leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow; a glowworm lanp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains-alas, too few! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. ENGLISH SONNETS. EASTER MORNING. OST glorious Lord of life! that, on this day, Didst make thy triumph over death and sin; And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest die, Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, May live for ever in felicity: And that thy love we weighing worthily, May likewise love Thee for the same again; And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, With love may one another entertain! So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought; Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. EDMUND SPENSER. ENGLISH SONNETS. WILLING BONDAGE. IKE as a huntsman after weary chase Seeing the game from him escaped away, Sits down to rest him in some shady place With panting hounds beguiled of their prey; So, after long pursuit and vain assay, When I all weary had the chase forsook, The gentle deer returned the self-same way Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook; There she, beholding me with milder look, Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide; Till I in hand her yet half trembling took, And with her own good-will her firmly tied;Strange thing, meseemed, to see a beast so wild So goodly won, with her own will beguiled. EDMUND SPENSER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 3 TRUE BEAUTY. 'EN call you fair, and you do credit it, For that yourself you daily such do see; But the true fair, that is the gentle wit, And virtuous mind, is much more praised of me: For all the rest, however fair it be Shall turn to nought, and lose that glorious hue; But only that is permanent and free From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue. That is true beauty; that doth argue you To be divine, and born of heavenly seed; Derived from that fair Spirit from whom all true And perfect beauty did at first proceed. He only fair, and what He fair hath made; All other fair, like flowers, untimely fade. EDMUND SPENSER. 4 ENGLISH SONNETS. IKE as a ship that through the ocean wide, By conduct of some star, doth make her way, Whenas a storm hathdimmed her trustyguide, Out of her course doth wander far astray,So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray Me to direct, with clouds is overcast, Do wander now in darkness and dismay, Through hidden perils round about me placed: Vet hope I well that, when this storm is past, My Helike, the lodestar of my life, Will shine again, and look on me at last, With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief: Till then I wander careful, comfortless, In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness. EDMUND SPENSER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 5 ITI1 how sad steps, 0 moon, thou climb'st the * Hwskies, How silently, and with how wan a face! What! may it be, that e'en in heavenly place That busy Archer his sharp arrow tries? Sure if that long with love acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. Then, even of fellowship, 0 moon, tell me Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there-ungratefulness? SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ENGLISH SONNETS. AVING this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtained the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy, France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; Townfolks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise, Some lucky wits impute it but to chance: Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make. How far they shot awry! the true cause is, Stella looked on; and from her heavenly face Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. BY POETS OF THE PAST. INCE Nature's works be good, and death doth serve As Nature's work, why should we fear to die? Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, Why should we fear that which we cannot fly? Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, Disarming human minds of native might; While each conceit an ugly figure bears Which were not evil, well viewed in reason's light. Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be, And scarce discern the dawn of coming day, Let them be cleared, and now begin to see Our life is but a step in dusty way. Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind; Since this we feel, great loss we cannot find. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 8 ENGLISH SONNETS. A VISION UPON THE FAERY QUEEN. ETHOUGHT I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that Temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn; and passing by that way To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen: At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept; And from thenceforth those Graces were not'seen, For they this Queen attended; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce, Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, And cursed the access of that celestial thief. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. BY POSTS OF THE PAST. 9 THE CONSTANCY OF LOVE. ERE I as base as is the lowly plain, And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love. Were I as high as heaven above the plain, And you, my Love, as humble and as low As are the deepest bottoms of the main, Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should go. Were you the earth dear Love, and I the skies, My love should shine on you like to the sun, And look upon you with ten thousand eyes Till heaven waxed blind and till the world were done. Wheresoe'er I am, below or else above you, Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you. JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 10 ENGLISH SONNETS. FAVOUR. ADY I in beauty and in favour rare, Of favour, not of due, I favour crave: Nature to thee beauty and favour gave, Fair then thou art, and favour thou may'st spare. And when on me bestowed your favours are, Less favour in your face you shall not have: If favour then a wounded soul may save, Of murder's guilt, dear lady, then beware. My loss of life a million-fold were less Than the least loss should unto you befall; Yet grant this gift: which gift when I possess, Both I have life, and you no loss at all: For by your favour only I do live; And favour you may well both keep and give. HENRY CONSTABLE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. Is t ITY refusing my poor Love to feed, A beggar starved for want of help he lies, And at your mouth, the door of Beauty, cries That thence some alms of sweet grants may proceed. But as he waiteth for some alms-deed, A cherry-tree before the door he spies"0 dear!" quoth he, "two cherries may suffice, Two only life may save in this my need." But beggars, can they nought but cherries eat? Pardon my Love, he is a goddess' son, And never feedeth but on dainty meat, Else need he not to pine as he hath done: For only the sweet fruit of this sweet tree Can give food to my Love, and life to me. HENRY CONSTABLE. to ENGLISH SONNETS. THE LAST CHANCE. INCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part Nay, I have done; you get no more of me: And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, Now, if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. MICHAEL DRAYTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. ~3 TO THE RIVER ANKOR. LEAR Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore My soul-shrined Saint, my fair Idea lies, 0 blessedBrook, whosemilk-white swans adore The crystal stream refined by her eyes, Where sweet myrrh-breathing zephyr in the spring Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers, Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing, Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers; Say thus, fair Brook, when thou shalt see thy queen, Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wandering years; And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been; And here to thee he sacrificed his tears:Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone; And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon i MICHAEL DRAYTON. 14 4NGLISH SONNETS. TO SLEEP. ARE-CHARMER Sleep, sonof the sable night, Brother to death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish, and restore the light: With dark forgetting of my care return, And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night's untruth. Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires, To model forth the passions of the morrow; Never let rising sun approve you liars, To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow: Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, And never wake to feel the day's disdain SAMUEL DANIEL. BY POETS OF THE PAST. is REMEMBRANCE.' I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh Love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. r6 ENGLISH SONNETS. SUNSHINE AND CLOUD. ULL many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendour on my brow; But, out, alack I he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 17 THE TRUE AND THE FALSE. HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live: The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. c z8 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE WORLD'S WAY. IRED with all these, for restful death I cry,As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill: -Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 19 LIFE'S AUTUMN. HAT time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet bird sang: In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by:This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. s0 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. O longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. 0, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay,Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY POETS OF THE PAST. THE GARDEN OF LOVE. ROM you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, IHath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you,-you pattern of all those. Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with, these did play. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 22 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE FORWARD VIOLET THUS DID I CHIDE: WEET thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, Ifnotfrommy Love's breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my Love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The Lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of Marjoram had stolen thy hair: The Roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair: A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both And to his robbery had annexed thy breath; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 23 HOPE AGAINST HOPE., CALL not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue; Use power with power, and slay me not by art. Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might Is more than my o'er-pressed defence can bide? Let me excuse thee: ah I my love well knows Her pretty looks have been mine enemies; And therefore from my face she turns my foes, That they elsewhere might dart their injuries: Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 24 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE BEAUTY OF BEAUTIES. HEN in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And, for they looked but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 25 TRUE LOVE. ET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: 0, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. ENGLISH SONNETS. A PICTURE. 0 1 as a careful housewife runs to catch One of her feathered creatures broke away, Sets down herbabe, and makesallswift despatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay; Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent To follow that which flies before her face, Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind; But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind: So will I pray that thou mayst have thy ' Will,' If thou turn back, and my loud crying still. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY POETS OF THE PAST 27 SOUL AND BODY. OOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Fooled by these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there's no more dying then. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. a8 ENGLISH SONNETS. CONTENT. H, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode? Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad, Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains? Ah, sweet Content, where dost thou safely rest? In heaven, with Angels which the praises sing Of Him that made and rules at his behest The minds and hearts of every living thing? Ah, sweet Content, where doth thine harbour hold? Is it in churches with religious men Which please the gods with prayers manifold, And in their studies meditate it then? Whether thou dost in heaven or earth appear, Be where thou wilt, thou wilt not harbour here. BARNABE BARNES. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 29 THE TALENT. RACIOUS, Divine, and most Omnipotent I Receive Thy servant's Talent in good part, Who hid it not, but willing did convert It to best use he could, when it was lent: The sum-though slender, yet not all misspentReceive, dear God of grace I from cheerful heart Of him that knows how merciful Thou art, And with what grace to contrite sinners bent. I know my fault, I did not as I should; My sinful flesh against my soul rebell'd; But since I did endeavour what I could, Let not my little nothing be withheld From Thy rich treasuries of endless grace; But (for Thy sake) let it procure a place. BARNABE BARNES. /. so ENGLISH SONNETS. TO DEATH. thee EEATH, be not proud, though some have called Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery. Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally; And death shall be no more-Death, thou shalt die. JOHN DONNE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 3r MARY MAGDALEN. j HESE Eyes (dear Lord) once brandons1 of desire, Frailscouts betraying what they had to keep, Which their own heart, then others set on fire, Their traitrous black before Thee here out-weep: These Locks, of blushing deeds the fair attire, Smooth-frizzled waves, sad shelves which shadow deep, Soul-stinging serpents in gilt curls which creep, To touch Thy sacred feet do now aspire. In seas of Care behold a sinking Bark, By winds of sharp Remorse unto Thee driven, 0 let me not exposed be ruin's mark I My faults confest,-Lord, say they are forgiven." Thus sighed to Jesus the Bethanian fair, His tear-wet feet still drying with her hair. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 1 Torches 39 ENGLISH SONNETS. HUMAN FRAILTY. GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flowers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, A honour that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness, in effect a dream, A fabulous thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, decked with a pompous name, Are the strange ends we toil for here below, Till wisest death makes us our errors know. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 33 WEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train, Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flowers; The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers Thou turn'st, sweet youth; but ah I my pleasant hours And happy days with thee come not again! The sad memorials only of my pain Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets to sours: Thou art the same which still thou wast before, Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair; But she, whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air, Is gone; nor gold, nor gems her can restore. Neglected Virtue, seasons go and come, While thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb. WILLIAM DRUMMONI. D 34 ENGLISH SONNETS. BEFORE A POEM OF IRENE. OURN not, fair Greece, the ruin of thy kings, Thy temples razed, thy forts with flames devoured, Thy champions slain, thy virgins pure deflowered, Nor all those griefs which stern Bellona brings: But mourn, fair Greece, mourn that that sacred band Which made thee once so famous by their songs, Forced by outrageous fate, have left thy land, And left thee scarce a voice to plain thy wrongs! Mourn that those climates which to thee appear Beyond both Phoebus and his sister's ways, To save thy deeds from death must lend thee lays, And such as from Musaeus thou didst hear; For now Irene hath attained such fame, That Hero's ghost doth weep to hear her name. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 35 NO TRUST IN TIME. OOK how the flower which lingeringlydoth fade, The morning's darling late, the summer's queen, Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green, As high as it did raise, bows low the head: Right so my life, contentments being dead, Or in their contraries but only seen, With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been. As doth the pilgrim therefore, whom the night By darkness would imprison on his way, Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day; Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn, And twice it is not given thee to be born. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. ENGLISH SONNETS. LEXIS, here she stayed; among these pines, Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair; Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines; She sat her by these musked eglantinesThe happy place the print seems yet to bear; Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend an ear; Me here she first perceived, and here a morn Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face; Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born, And I first got a pledge of promised grace; But ah I what served it to be happy so Since passed pleasures double but new woe? WILLIAM DRUMMOND. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 37 RUST not, sweet soul, those curledwavesof gold With gentle tides that on your temples flow; Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, Nor snow of cheeks with Tyriangrain enrolled: Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe, When first I did their burning rays behold; Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show Than of the Thracian harper have been told: Look to this dying lily, fading rose, Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes: The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers Shall once, ay me! I not spare that spring of yours. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 38 ENGLISH SONNETS OWN in a valley, by a forest's side, Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves, I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride, As if the lilies grew to be his slaves. The gentle daisy, with her silver crown, Worn in the breast of many a shepherd's lass, The humble violet, that lowly down Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass,These, with a many more, methought complained That Nature should those needless things produce, Which not alone the sun from others gained, But turn it wholly to their proper use. I could not choose but grieve that Nature made So glorious flowers to live in such a shade. WILLIAM BROWNE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 39 ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North, Grew in a little garden all alone; A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth, Nor fairer garden yet was ever known: The maidens danced about it morn and noon, And learned bards of it their ditties made; The nimble fairies, by the pale-faced moon, Watered the root, and kissed her pretty shade. But, welladay! the gardener careless grew; The maids and fairies both were kept away, And in a drought the caterpillars threw Themselves upon the bud and every spray. God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies, The fairest blossom of the garden dies. WILLIAM BROWNE. 4P ENGLISH SONNETS. SING of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers; I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bride-grooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes: I write of Youth, of Love;-and have access By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness; I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece, Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris. I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write How roses first came red and lilies white: I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King: I write of Hell; I sing, and ever shall, Of Heaven,-And hope to have it after all. ROBERT HERRICK. BY POETS OF THE PAST. i' OU say I love not, 'cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away: You blame me, too, because I can't devise Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes;By Love's religion, I must here confess it, The most I love, when I the least express it: Small griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found To give, if any, yet but little sound: Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know, That chiding streams betray small depth below: So when love speechless is, she doth express A depth in love, and that depth bottomless. Now since my love is tongueless, know me such Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much. ROBERT HERRICK. 42 ENGLISH SONNETS. LOVE. MMORTAL Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade; How hath man parcelled out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortal love doth all the title gain I Which siding with Invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brainThy workmanship-and give thee share in neither. Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit; The world is theirs; they two play out the game, Thou standing by: and though thy glorious name Wrought our deliverance from th' infernal pit, Who sings thy praise? Only a scarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love. GEORGE HERBERT. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 4 43 ' ORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of glory ringing in our ears; Without, our shame; within, our consciences; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. GEORGE HERBERT. *4 4 ENGLISH SONNETS. Y God, where is that ancient heat towards Thee Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn, Besides their other flames? Doth poetry Wear Venus' livery,-only serve her turn? Why are not sonnets made of Thee, and lays Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight? Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same, Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy Name? Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose Than that which one day worms may chance refuse? GEORGE HERBERI. B' POE S OF THE PAST. 45 ON HIS BLINDNESS. HEN I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, retuining, chide;"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need Either man's works or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest:They also serve who only stand and wait." JOHN MILTON. 46 ENGLISH SONNETS. "'ADY, that in the prime of earliest youth Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, And with those few art eminently seen That labour up the hill of heavenly truth, The better part with Mary and with Ruth Chosen thou hast; and they that overween, And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen, No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends Passes to bliss at the mid-hour of night, Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure. JOHN MILTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 47 THE NIGHTINGALE. NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fi 1, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May; Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love; 0, if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why: Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. JOHN MILTON. ENGLISH SONNETS. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. VENGE, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. JOUN MILTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 49 AWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, what may be won From the hard season gaining? Time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise. JOIN MILTON. 50 ENGLISH SONNETS. WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY (Nov., 1642). APTAIN or Colonel, or Knight in Arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms: He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these; And he can spread thy name o'er land and seas, Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower: The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground; and the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. JOHN MILT.ON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. S3 ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON. HEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod; But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever. Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best, Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams And azure wings, that up they flew so drest, And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes Before the Judge; who thenceforth bid thee rest, And drink thy fill of sure immortal streams. JOHN MILTON. ENGLISH SONNETS. 52 THE MEANING OF LIFE. HEN 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 mis-spun: 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.' BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 53 TO DAMPIER. HRICE worthy guardian of that sacred spring, That erst with copious streams enriched this land, When Caesar taught our nobles to command, Tully to speak, Maeonides to sing; Till Fashion, stealing with unheeded wing Into this realm, with touch of foreign hand, Our girls emboldened, and our boys unmanned, And drew all ages to her magic ring:Yet shalt not thou be backward in thy sphere To thwart a sickly world; the sceptre given Thou know'st to wield, and force the noble youth To merit titles they were born to bear: Thou know'st that every sceptre is from Heaven That guides mankind to virtue and to truth. BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET. ENGLISH SONNETS. ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST. N 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. THOMAS GRAY. BY POETS OF THE PAST. ANNIVERSARY. PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen i X 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. WILLIAM MASON. 56 ENGLISH SONNETS ON BATHING. HEN late the trees were stript by winter pale, Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green, Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen, On airy uplands met the piercing gale; And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale, Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen. But since, gay-throned in fiery chariot sheen, Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale; She to the caves retires, high-arched beneath The fount that laves proud Isis' towered brim; And now, all glad the temperate air to breathe, While cooling drops distil from arches dim, Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath, She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim. THOMAS WARTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. S7 ON REVISITING THE RIVER LODON. H! what a weary race my feet have run fi Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned, And thought my way was all through fairy ground, Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun, - Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun! While pensive Memory traces back the round Which fills the varied interval between; Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene. Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure No more return to cheer my evening road I Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature, Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestowed. THOMAS WARTON. ENGLISH SONNETS. WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF DUGDALE'S "MONASTICON." EEM not devoid of elegance the sage, By fancy's genuine feelings unbeguil'd, Of pa'inful 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. THOMAS WARTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 59 TO MARY UNWIN. ARY I I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things; That ere through age or woe I shed my wings, I may record thy worth with honour due, In verse as musical as thou art true, And that immortalizes whom it sings:But thou hast little need;-there is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look, A chronicle of actions just and bright; - There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. WLLLIAM COWPER. 6o ENGLISH SONNETS. TO THE RIVER ARUN. N thy wild banks, by frequent torrents worn, No glittering fanes, or marble domes appear, Yet shall the mournful Muse thy course adorn, And still to her thy rustic waves be dear:For with the infant Otway, lingering here, Of early woes she bade her votary dream, While thy low murmurs soothed his pensive ear, And still the poet-consecrates the stream. Beneath the oak and birch that fringe thy side, The first-born violets of the year shall spring; And in thy hazels, bending o'er the tide, The earliest Nightingale delight to sing: -While kindred spirits, pitying, shall relate Thy Otway's sorrows, and lament his fate! CHARLOTTE SMITH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 6z WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING. IHE garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew, Anemones, that spangled every grove, The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. No more shall violets linger in the dell, Or purple orchis variegate the plain, Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair, Are the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care, Bid all thy fairy colours fade away. -Another May new buds and flowers shall bring Ah! why has happiness no second Spring? CHARLOTTE SMITH. 62 ENGLISH SONNETS. ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK, 25TH JAN., 1793. ING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough; Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain: See aged winter, 'mid his surly reign, At thy blithe carol clears his furrow'd brow. So in lone poverty's dominion drear, Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart, Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. I thank thee, Author of this opening day! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies i Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, What wealth could never give nor take away! Yet come, thou child of poverty and care, The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll share. ROBERT BURNS. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 63 ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, OF GRENRIDDEL, APRIL, 1794. 0O more, ye warblers of the wood, no more! Nor pour your descant, grating on my soul; Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stoleMore welcome were to me grim winter's wildest roar. I-low can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes? Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend: How can I to the tuneful strain attend? Thatstrainflows round th' untimely tomb where Riddel lies! Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe, And soothe the Virtues weeping on his bier: The Man of Worth, and has not left his peer, Is in his narrow house for ever darkly low. Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet; Me, memory of my loss will only meet. ROBERT BURNS. 164 ENGLISH SONNETS. ON PARTING WITH HIS BOOKS. S one who, destined from his friends to part, Regrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile To share their converse and enjoy their smile And temper as he may affliction's dart;Thus, loved associates I chiefs of elder Art I Teachers of wisdom! who could once beguile My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, I now resign you: nor with fainting heart; For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, And all your sacred fellowship restore; When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers, Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, And kindred spirits meet to part no more. WILLIAM Rosco&. BY POETS OF THE PAST. ECHO AND SILENCE. N eddying course when leaves began to fly, And Autumn in her lap the store to strew, As 'mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo Through glens untrod, and woods that frowned on high, Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy I And lo, she's gone!-in robe of dark-green hue, 'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew; For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky! In shade affrighted Silence melts away; Not so her sister:-hark I for onward still With far-heard step she takes her listening way, Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill I Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill. SIR SAMUEL EGERTON B3RYDGES. F 66 ENGLISH SONNETS. ABSENCE. HERE is strange music in the stirring wind, When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone, Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere. If in such shades, beneath their murmuring, Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring, With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year; Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at mor Or evening thou hast shared, far off shall stray. 0 Spring, return I return, auspicious May! But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn, If she return not with thy cheering ray, Who from these shades is gone, gone far away. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 67 OSTEND. (ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA.) OW sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal I As when at opening mom the fragrant breeze Breathes on the trembling sense of pale disease, So piercing to my heart their force I feel! And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall I And now along the white and level tide, They fling their melancholy music wide; Bidding me many a tender thought recall Of summer days, and those delightful years When by my native streams, in life's fair prime, The mournful magic of their mingling chime First waked my wondering childhood into tears I But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, The sounds of joy once heard and heard no more. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES. 68 ENGLISH SONNETS. VALCLUSA. HAT though, Valclusa, the fond bard be fled, That wooed his fair in thy sequestered bowers, Longloved herlivinglongbemoaned her dead, And hung her visionary shrine with flowers! What though no more he teach thy shades to mourn The hapless chances that to love belong, As erst, when drooping o'er her turf forlorn, He charmed wild Echo with his plaintive song! Yet still, enamoured of the tender tale, Pale Passion haunts thy grove's romantic gloom, Yet still soft music breathes in every gale, Still undecayed the fairy garlands bloom, Still heavenly incense fills each fragrant vale, Still Petrarch's Genius weeps o'er Laura's tomb. THOMAS RUSSELL. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 69 AT LEMNOS. N this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright The cautious pilot, ten revolving years Great Psean's son, unwonted erst to tears, Wept o'er his wound: alike each rolling light Of heaven he watched, and blamed its lingering flight: By day the sea-mew, screaming round his cave, Drove slumber from his eyes; the chiding wave And savage howlings chased his dreams by night. Hope still was his: in each low breeze, that sighed Through his rude grot, he heard a coming oar; In each white cloud a coming sail he spied; Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar Of CEta's torrents, or the hoarser tide That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic shore. THOMAS RUSSELL. o70 ENGLISH SONNETS. OULD then the Babes from yon unsheltered cot Implore thy passing charity in vain? Too thoughtless Youth I what tho' thy happier lot Insult their life of poverty and pain. What tho' their Maker doomed them thus forlorn To brook the mockery of the taunting throng, Beneath th' oppressor's iron scourge to mourn, To mourn, but not to murmur at his wrong I Yet when their last late evening shall decline, Their evening cheerful, though their day distressed, A Hope perhaps more heavenly-bright than thine, A Grace by thee unsought, and unpossess'd, A Faith more fixed, a Rapture more divine Shall gild their passage to eternal Rest. THOMAS RUSSELL. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 7t T is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the sea: Listen I the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder-everlastingly. Dear child I dear girl I that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by. solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 72 ENGLISH SONNETS. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. ARTH has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so.touching in its majesty: This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Never saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 73 ENGLAND AND SWITZERLAND, 1802. WO Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty! There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven: Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft: Then cleave, 0 cleave, to that which still is left; For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be That Mountain floods should thunder as before, And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, And neither awful Voice be heard by thee I WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 74 ENGLISH SONNETS. URPRISED by joy-impatient as the wind I turned to share the transport-Oh, with whom But thee, deep-buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mindBut how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss? That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn, Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 75 ALM is all nature as a resting wheel. The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly his later meal: Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale and mountain, and the starless sky; Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal That grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food; for only then, when memory Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain; Oh, leave me to myself! nor let me feel The officious touch that makes me droop again. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. ENGLISH SONNETS. OW sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks Thewayward brain,to saunterthrough awood! An old place, full of many a lovely brood, Tall trees, green arbours, and ground-flowers in flocks; And wild rose tip-toe upon hawthorn stocks, Like a bold girl who plays her agile pranks At wakes and fairs with wandering mountebanks,When she stands cresting the clown's head, and mocks The crowd beneath her. Verily I think, Such place to me is sometimes like a dream - r map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link, Enter through ears and eyesight, with such gleam Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink. And leap at once from the delicious stream. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH BY POETS OF THE PAST. 77 UNS fret not at their convent's narrow room; And hermits are contented with their cells And students with their pensive citadels: Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, - High as the highest peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth, the prison unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. ENGLISH SONNETS. HE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon I This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.-Great God I I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF HE PAST. 79 LONDON, 1802. ILTON I thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. go 8NtNGLrSH SONNETS. ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC. NCE did She hold the gorgeous East in fee; And was the safeguard of the West: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. She was a maiden city, bright and free; No guile seduced, no force could violate; And when she took unto herself a mate, She must espouse the everlasting Sea. And what if she had seen those glories fade, Those titles vanish, and that strength decay,Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid When her long life hath reached its final day: Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great is passed away. WILLIAM WORDSWOa'rH. BY POETS OF THE PAST 8t POE TI-He hath put his heart to school, Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff Which Art hath lodged within his handmust laugh 'By precept only, and shed tears by rule. Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold 7 Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold; And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree Comes not by casting in a formal mould, But from its own divine vitality. WILLIAM WORDSWORTIL G so ENGLISH SONNETS. WATCH, and long have watched, with calm regret Yon slowly-sinking star-immortal Shie (So might he seem) of all the glittering quire I Blue ether still surrounds him-yet-and yet; But now the horizon's rocky parapet Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire, He bums-transmuted to a sullen fire, That droops and dwindles-and, the appointed debt To the flying moments paid, is seen no more. Angels and gods I we struggle with our fate, While health, power, glory, pitiably decline, Depressed, and then extinguished: and our state In this how different, lost star, from thine, That no to-morrow shall our beams restore I WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away.-Vain sympathies I For backward, Duddon I as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; UAeW we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;-be it so I Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 84 ENGLISH SONNETS. NOVEMBER, I806. NOTHER year I-another deadly blow I Another mighty empire overthrown! And we are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the foe. 'Tis well I from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought; That by our own right hands it must be wrought; That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low. O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer I We shall exult, if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear, And honour which they do not understand. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. LONDON, 1802. FRIEND! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Or groom!-We must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest: The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 86 ENGLISH SONNETS A PARSONAGE IN OXFORDSHIRE. HERE holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, Is marked by no distinguishable line; The turf invites, the pathways intertwine; And, wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends, Garden, and that domain where kindred, friends, And neighbours rest together, here confound Their several features, mingled like the sound Of many'waters, or as evening blends With shady night. Soft airs from shrub and flower Waft fragrant greetings to each silent grave; And while those lofty poplars gently wave Their tops, between them comes and goes a sky Bright as the glimpses of eternity To saints accorded in their mortal hour. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 87 NATURE. T may indeed be phantasy when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, to me it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, The only God I and Thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 88 8ENGLISH SONNETS. FANCY IN NUBIBUS. IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily-persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land I Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 89 THE AUTUMNAL MOON. ILD splendour of the various-vested Night I Mother of wildly-working-visions! hail I I watch thy gliding, while with watery light Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil; And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud Behind the gathered blackness lost on high; And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky. Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair! Now dimly peering on the wistful sight; Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair; But soon emerging in her radiant might She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 90 ENGLISH SONNETS. FAREWELL TO LOVE. AREWELL, sweet Love I yet blame you not my truth: More fondly ne'er did mother eye her child Than I your form. Yours were my hopes of youth, And as you shaped my thoughts, I sighed or smiled. While most were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, To you I gave my whole, weak, wishing heart. And when I met the maid that realized Your fair creations, and had won her kindness, Say but for her if aught on earth I prized I Your dream alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness. 0 grief!-but farewell, Love! I will go play me With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me, SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 9t ASK not riches, and I ask not power, Nor in her revel rout shall Pleasure view Me ever,-a far sweeter nymph I woo. Hail, sweet Retirement! lead me to thy bower, Where fair Content has spread her loveliest flower, Of more enduring, though less gaudy hue, Than Pleasure scatters to her giddy crew; Nor let aught break upon thy sacred hour, Save some true friend, of pure congenial soul; To such the latchet of my wicket-gate Let me lift freely, glad to share the dole Fortune allows me, whether small or great, And a warm heart, that knows not the control Of Fortune, and defies the frown of Fate. HENRY FRANCIS CARY. ENGLISH SONNETS. GOD I have mercy in this dreadful hour On the poor mariner I in comfort here Safe sheltered as I am, I almost fear The blast that rages with resistless power. What were it now to toss upon the waves, The maddened waves, and know no succour near: The howling of the storm alone to hear, And the wild sea that to the tempest raves; To gaze amid the horrors of the night And only see the billow's gleaming light; Then in the dread of death to think of her Who, as she listens sleepless to the gale, Puts up a silent prayer and waxes pale, O God I have mercy on the mariner!' ROBERT SOUTHEY. BY POETS OF THE PAST. TO A FRIEND. My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared, Companion dear, and we alike have fared (Poor pilgrims we) through life's unequal ways; It were unwisely done, should we refuse To cheer our path as featly as we may, Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use, With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay; And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, Of mercies shewn, and all our sickness healed, And in his judgments God remembering love; And we will learn to praise God evermore For those glad tidings of great joy revealed By that sooth Messenger sent from above. CHARLES LAMB, I 94.ENGLISH SOXNETS. TO INNOCENCE. E were two pretty babes; the youngest she, The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, And Innocence her name. The time has been We two did love each other's company; Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. But when, by show of seeming good beguiled, I left the garb and manners of a child, And my first love, for man's society, Defiling with the world my virgin heartMy loved companion dropped a tear, and fled, And hid in deepest shades her awful head. Beloved, who shall tell me where thou artIn what delicious Eden to be foundThat I may seek thee the wide world around. CHARLES LAMB. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 91 N Christian world Mary the garland wears I Rebecca sweetens on a Hebrew's ear; Quakers for pure Priscilla are more clear; And the light Gaul by amorous Ninon swears; Among the lesser lights how Lucy shines! What air of fragrance Rosamond throws round I How like a hymn doth sweet Cecilia sound I Of Marthas, and of Abigails, few lines Have bragged in verse. Of coarsest household stuff Should homely.oan be fashioned. But can You Barbara resist, or Marian? And is not Clare for love excuse enough? Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess, These all than Saxon Edith please me less. CHARLES LAMB. 96 ENGLISH SONNETS. NIGHT AND DEATH. YSTERIOUS Night I when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo I creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, 0 Sun! or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind I Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE. * BY POETS OF THE PAST. 9y aTERNAL and Omnipotent Unseen! Who bad'st the world, with all its lives complete, Start from the void and thrill beneath thy feet, Thee I adore with reverence serene; Here, in the fields, thine own cathedral meet, Built by thyself, star-roofed, and hung with green, Wherein all breathing things in concord sweet, Organed by winds, perpetual hymns repeat. Here hast thou spread that book to every eye, Whose tongue and truth all, all may read and prove, On whose three blessed leaves, Earth, Ocean, Sky, Thine own right hand hath stamped might, justice, love; Grand Trinity, which binds in due degree God, man, and brute, in social unity. HoRAcE SMITH, H 98 ENGLISH SONNETS. ON THE STATUE OF A PIPING FAUN. ARK hear'st thou not the pipe of Faunus, sweeping, In dulcet glee, through Thessaly's domain? Dost thou not see embowered wood-nymphs peeping To watch the Graces that around him reign; While distant vintagers, and peasants reaping, Stand in mute transport, listening to the strain; And Pan himself, beneath a pine-tree sleeping, Looks round, and smiles, and drops to sleep again? 0 happy Greece I while thy blest sons were rovers Through all the loveliness this earth discovers, They in their minds a brighter region founded, Haunted by gods and sylvans, nymphs and lovers, Where forms ofgrace through sunnylandscapes bounded, By music and enchantment all surrounded. HORACE SMITH. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 99 ON A GREEN-HOUSE. * ERE, from earth's daedal heights and dingles lowly, The representatives of Nature meet; Not like a Congress, or Alliance Holy Of Kings, to rivet chains, but with their sweet Blossomy mouths to preach the love complete, That with pearl'd misletoe, and beaded holly, Clothed them in green unchangeable, to greet Winter with smiles, and banish melancholy. I envy not the Emathian madman's fame, Who won the world, and built immortal shame On tears and blood; but if some flower, new found, In its embalming cup might shroud my name, Mine were a tomb more worthily renowned Than Cheops' pile, or Artemisia's mound. HORACE SMITU. roo ENGLISH SONNETS. THE HARVEST MOON. HE crimson moon, uprising from the sea, With large delight, foretells the harvest near Ye shepherds, now prepare your melody To greet the soft appearance of her sphere - And, like a page enamoured of her train, The star of evening glimmers in the west Then raise, ye shepherds, your observant strain, That so of the Great Shepherd here are bklest:Our fields are full with the time-ripened grain, Our vineyards with the purple clusters swell; Her golden splendour glimmers on the main, And vales and mountains her bright glory tell: Then sing, ye shepherds, for the time is come When we must bring the enriched harvest home. LORD THURLOW. BY POETS OF THE PAST. loz TO A WATER BIRD. MELANCHOLY bird!-a winter's day Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To patience, which all evil can allay; God has appointed thee the fish thy prey; And given thyself a lesson to the fool Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. There need not schools, nor the professor's chair, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart; He who has not enough for these to spare Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart, And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair; Nature is always wise in every part. LORD THURLOW. 102 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO AMORET. HE Summer, the divinest Summer burs, The skies are bright with azure and with gold; The mavis and the nightingale, by turns, Amid the woods a soft enchantment hold; The flowering woods, with glory and delight, Their tender leaves unto the air have spread; The wanton air amid their alleys bright Doth softly fly, and a light fragrance shed; The Nymphs within the silver fountains play; The Angels on the golden banks recline; Wherein great Flora, in her bright array, Hath sprinkled her ambrosial sweets divine;Or, else, I gaze upon that beauteous face, O Amoret! and think these sweets have place. LORD THURLOW. BY POETS OF THA PAST. 103 FOUNTAINS ABBEY. BBEY I for ever smiling pensively, How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise Amid her loveliest works! as if the skies, Clouded with grief, were arched thy roof to be, And the tall trees were copied all from thee I Mourning thy fortunes-while the waters dim Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn, Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy; As if they with a weeping sister wept, Winds name thy name! But thou, tho' sad, art calm, And Time with thee his plighted troth hath kept; For harebells deck thy brow, and, at thy feet, Where sleep the proud, the bee and redbreast meet, Mixing thy sighs with Nature's lonely psalm. EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 104 ENGLICSH SONNETS. TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. REEN little vaulter in the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass; Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, tho' small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural songIn doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. LEIGH HUNT. BY POETS OF THE PAST. uts THE NILE. T flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a ~ dream, And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands,Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. Then comes a mightier silence, stem and strong, As of a world left empty of its throng, And the void weighs on us; and then we wake, And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for human sake. LEIGH HUNT. x06 ENGLISH SONNETS. ORFORD CASTLE. EACON for barks that navigate the stream Of Ore or Aide, or breast the ocean spray: Landmark for inland travellers far away O'er heath and sheep-walk-as the morning beam, Or the declining sunset's mellower gleam, Lights up thy weather-beaten turrets gray; Still dost thou bear thee bravely in decay, As if thy by-gone glory were no dream! Yea, now with lingering grandeur thou look'st down From thy once fortified, embattled hill, As if thine ancient office to fulfil; And though thy keep be but the ruin'd crown Of Orford's desolate and dwindled town, Seem'st to assert thy sovereign honour still. BERNARD BARTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 107 HE butterfly, which sports on gaudy wing; The brawling brooklet, lost in foam and spray, As it goes dancing on its idle way; The sunflower, in broad daylight glistening; Are types of her who in the festive ring Lives but to bask in fashion's vain display, And glittering thro' her bright but useless day, " Flaunts, and goes down a disregarded thing I" Thy emblem, Lucy, is the busy bee, Whose industry for future hours provides; The gentle streamlet, gladding as it glides Unseen along,-the flower which gives the lea Fragrance and loveliness, are types of thee, And of the active worth thy modest merit hides. BERNARD BARTON. MB ENGLSH SONNETS. WINTER. (To WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT.) INTER hath bound the brooks in icy chains; The bee that murmured in the cowslip bell, Now feasts securely in his honeyed cell; Silence is on the woods and on the plains, And darkening clouds and desolating rains Have marred your forest-fountain's quiet spell Yet, tho' retired from these awhile ye dwell, Your hearts' best hoard of poesy remains. The sports of childhood, the exhaustless store Of home-born thoughts and feelings dear to each ~ Converse, or silence eloquent as speech; History's rich page, tradition's richer lore Of tale and lcgend prized in days of yore;These, worthy of the Muse, are in your reach BERNARD BARTON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. log AST the grey tombs what space an arrow flies, The darkening road winds down ahollow glade, Romantic spot! and sweetly solemn made By over-arching trees of giant size: Above, Aricia's battlements arise, As on the branches of the lofty shade The town were based, with all its long parade Of domes and turrets basking in the skies. More shadowy depths and varied tints of green Not Vallombrosa clothe,-here, stranger, stay, And on thy tablet spread the sylvan scene:Nor charmed alone the prospect's fair array; Old memories my raptures flashed between, And peopled thick the silent Appian Way. CHARLES STRONG. Rome 1822. X10 ENGLISh SONNETS. this the spot where Rome's eternal foe Into his snares the mighty legions drew, Whence from the carnage, spiritless and few, A remnant scarcely reached her gates of woe? Is this the stream, thus gliding soft and slow, That, from the gushing wounds of thousands, grew So fierce a flood, that waves of crimson hue Rushed on the bosom of the lake below? The mountains that gave back the battle-cry Are silent now; perchance yon hillocks green Mark where the bones of those old warriors lie. Heaven never gladdened a more peaceful scene; Never left softer breeze a fairer sky To sport upon thy waters, Thrasymene! CHARLES STRONG. BY POETS OF THE PAST. Sarz ACING, as I was wont, on day of rest, Amid the Coliseum's awful round,,From distant corridor there came a sound, As of a voice that published tidings blest: Along the vaulted way I forward press'd, And soon a group of dark-eyed Romans found, Intent and fixed, like men some spell had bound, The Preacher with such power their souls address'd. The words he spake, his gesture, and rapt look, Betokened one whom Heaven had rendered bold To ope the treasures of the sacred book. Methouglit the Shepherd visibly forsook Temples, where holy things were bought and sold, For two or three thus gathered to his fold. CHARLES STRONG. tsx ENGLISH SONNETS. RE the wide waters on my view had smiled, From inland vale, in sunset's shapeful hue, Oft Fancy traced their level line of blue, And pictured cliffs where golden clouds were piled; Often the Sea-bird's wail my mind beguiled, I loved the boisterous home from which they flew: From out dark pines when winds loud murmurs drew, Methought I heard the waves in chorus wild. At length I blest a Brother's guiding hand, The goal was reached, and as I stood entranced, A new world viewing from the lofty land, Sudden-around the precipice that veils The western sky, a warrior-ship advanced,On the blue waste a Pyramid of Sails. CHARLES STRONG. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 13 WAS near the walls that gird the imperial town, Where from a lonely Convent's still retreat I saw, whilst Tiber glowed beneath my feet, From heaven's illumined vault the Sun go down; The lofty Capitol, like burnished crown, Blazed on the City's brow,-each hallowed seat, Each mournful relic of the perished Great, Seemed once more brightening into old renown; The Plain in purple haze lay slumbering deep, The giant arches, that bestrode it, shone A bridge of gold to blue Albano's steep. Man, here alas I for ages overthrown, With no gleam kindles, sunk in deathlike sleep, His ruin, Rome, is darker than thine own. CHARLES STRONG. I H4 ENGLISH SONNETS THOU I whose golden reins curb steeds of fire, Blest be the rosy hours that onward bring Thy glorious pomp,nowNight withfolded wing Hides in her cave, and heaven's pale host retire: Fresh from their flowery beds the gales respire, To rapture new awakes each living thing, Rivers run )oyous, woods harmonious ring, As Earth, unveiling, shows her green attire. Now Ocean shines distinct, the bark unmoors; Flocks to the dewy mountains from the fold Go forth, the springing lark above them soars; And hopeful Man, as on thy state is roll'd, Welcomes the beam that o'er the cluster pours A deeper dye, and ripens fruits of gold. CHARLES STRONG. BY POETS OF THE PAST. xIS THE EVENING CLOUD. CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun; A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow; Long had I watched the glory moving on, O'er the still radiance of the lake below; Tranquil its spirit seemed and floated slow; Even in its very motion there was rest; While every breath of eve that chanced to blow Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west. Emblem, methought, of the departed soul, To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given; And by the breath of mercy made to roll Right onward to the golden gates of Heaven; Where to the eye of Faith it peaceful lies, And tells to man his glorious destinies. JOHN WILSON. ENGLISH SONNETS 0 up among the mountains, when the storm Of midnight howls, but go in that wild mood When the soul loves tumultuous solitude, And thro' the haunted air, each giant form Of swinging pine, black rock, or ghostly cloud, That veils some fearful catract, tumbling loud, Seems to thy breathless heart with life imbued. 'Mid those gaunt shapeless thingsthou art alone! The mind exists, thinks, trembles thro' the ear, The memory of the human world is gone, And time and space seem living only here. 0, worship thou the visions then made known, While sable glooms round Nature's temple roll, And her dread anthem peals into thy soul I JOHN WILSON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. I17 THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. MID the torch-lit gloom of Aachen's isle Stood Otho, Germany's imperial lord, Regarding, with a melancholy smile, A simple stone, where, fitly to record A world of action by a single word, Was graven "Carlo-Magno." Regal style Was needed none: that name such thoughts restored As sadden, yet make nobler men the while. They rolled the marble back: with sudden gasp A moment o'er the vault the Kaiser bent, Where still a mortal monarch seemed to reign. Crowned, on his throne, a sceptre in his grasp, Perfect in each gigantic lineament, Otho looked face to face on Charlemagne! SIR AUBREY DE VERa. 1X8 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE LANDRAIL. EAR, wakeful bird I I bid thine accents hail, When, like the voice of May, thy startling note Comes wandering up the moonlit, grassy vale, Or hill of springing corn, or reedy moat; Dearer I love thee than the classic throat, Melodious, of the poet's nightingale, When her aerial numbers wildly float, Like fairy music, o'er some haunted dale. 'Tis thine to wake a sweeter harmony, Thrilling the viewless chords of memory:To come upon the heart in silent hours, Touching each trembling pulse deliciously; Recalling vows of youth, Hope's budding flowers, And visions of pure love in amaranthine bowers I SIR AUBREY DE VERE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. X19 TO GENEVRA. woe, WHY cheek is pale with thought, but not from And yet so lovely, that if mirth could flush Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush, My heart would wish away that ruder glow;And dazzle not thy deep blue eyes,-but oh! While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush, And into mine my mother's weakness rush, Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow. For, through thy long dark lashes, low depending, The soul of melancholy gentleness Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending, Above all pain, yet pitying all distress; At once such majesty with sweetness blending, I worship more, but cannot love thee less. LORD BYRON. 120 2ENGLISH SONNETS. LAKE LEMAN. OUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and De Sta~ILeman I these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more Their memory thy remembrance would recall: To them thy banks were lovely as to all, But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality Is proud,. and makes the breath of glory real! LORD BYRON. BY POETS OF THE PAST. X2I CHILLON. TERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou artFor there thy habitation is the heartThe heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface I For they appeal from tyranny to God. LORD BYRON. Z12 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE FIRE-FLY. B ELL us, 0 Guide, by what strange natural laws This winged flower throws out, night after night, Such lunar brightness? Wky,-for what grave cause Is this earth-insect crowned with heavenly light? Peace I Rest content! See where, by cliff and dell, Past tangled forest-paths and silent river, The little lustrous creature guides us well, And where we fail, his small light aids us ever. Night's charming servant I! Pretty star of earth! I ask not why thy lamp doth ever burn. Perhaps it is thy very life,-thy mind; And thou, if robbed of that strange right of birth, Might be no more than Man, when death doth turn His beauty into darkness, cold and blind. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 123 A STILL PLACE. NDER what beechen shade, or silent oak, Lies the mute sylvan now, mysterious Pan? Once, (while rich Peneus and Ilissus ran Clear from their fountains,) as the morning broke, 'Tis said the Satyr with Apollo spoke, And to harmonious strife with his wild reed Challenged the god, whose music was indeed Divine, and fit for heaven. Each played, and woke Beautiful sounds to life,-deep melodies; One blew his pastoral pipe with such nice care That flocks and birds all answered him; and one Shook his immortal showers upon the air. That music hath ascended to the sun; But where the other? Speak, ye dells and trees I BRYAN WALLER PROCTER. 124 ENGLISH SONNETS LIFE OME, track with me this little vagrant rill, Wandering its wild course from the mountain's breast; Now with a brink fantastic, heather-drest, And playing with the stooping flowers at will; Now moving scarce, with noiseless step and still; Anon it seems to weary of its rest, And hurries on, leaping with sparkling zest Adown the ledges of the broken hill. So let us live. Is not the life well spent Which loves the lot that kindly Nature weaves For all inheriting, or adorning, earth? Which throws light pleasure over true content, Blossoms with fruitage, flowers as well as leaves, And sweetens wisdom with a taste of mirth? THOMAS DOUBLEDAY. BY POETS OF THE PAST. i'Vs E hasten to the dead I What seek ye there, Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear t O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess All that anticipation feigneth fair I Thou vainly curious mind, which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go, And that which never yet was known wouldst knowOh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, Seeking alike from happiness and woe A refuge in the cavern of grey death? O heart, and mind, and thoughts I what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below? PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 120 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO THE NILE. ONTH after month the gathered rains descend Drenching yon secret AEthiopian dells, And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells By Nile's aerial urn, with rapid spells Urging its waters to their mighty end. O'er Egypt's land of memory floods are level, And they are thine, 0 Nile-and well thou knowesc That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest. Beware, 0 Man-for knowledge must to thee Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 127 OZYMANDIAS. MET a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: ' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. PERCY BYSSHE SHE LZY. xa8 B.ENGLISH SONNETS. POLITICAL GREATNESS. k OR happiness, nor majesty, not fame, Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame; Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, History is but the shadow of their shame, Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts. As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, Staining that heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit By force or custom? Man who man would be, Must rule the empire of himself; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. BY POETS OF TIHE PAST. 329 TO WORDSWORTH. OET of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return; Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude. In honoured poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. K 130 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE LOVE OF GOD. (I.) OVE Thee 1-0 Thou, the world's eternal Sire I Whose palace is the vast infinity, Time, space, height, depth, 0 God I! are full of Thee, And sun-eyed seraphs tremble and admire. Love Thee!-but Thou art girt with vengeful fire, And mountains quake, and banded nations flee, And terror shakes the wide unfathomed sea, When the heavens rock with Thy tempestuous ire. O Thou I too vast for thought to comprehend, That wast ere time,-shalt be when time is o'er; Ages and worlds begin-grow old-and end; Systems and suns Thy changeless throne before, Commence and close their cycles:-lost, I bend To earth my prostrate soul, and shudder, and adore! HENRY HART MILMAN. BY POETS OF THE PAST 131 (Il.) OVE thee I —oh, clad in human lowliness, In whom eachheart its mortal kindred knowsOur flesh, our form, our tears, our pains, our woes,A fellow-wanderer o'er earth's wilderness I Love thee!-whose every word but breathes to bless! Through Thee, fromlong-sealedlips, gladlanguageflows; The blind their eyes, that laugh with light, unclose; And babes, unchid, Thy garment's hem caress. I see Thee, doomed by bitterest pangs to die, Up the sad hill, with willing footsteps, move, With scourge, and taunt, and wanton agony, While the cross nods, in hideous gloom, above, Though all-even there-be radiant Deity I -Speechless I gaze, and my whole soul is Love I HENRY HART MILMAN. 132 ENGLISH SOWNETS. HUNTSPILL TOWER. OVE beyond cove, in faint and fainter line I trace the winding shore, and dream I hear The distant billows where they break and shine On the dark isles. Around us, far and near, The bright gay breeze is sweeping cheerily, Chequering the green moor, like the summer field Of ocean, with the shadows of the sky. In all their graceful majesty revealed, Now purple-shaded, now in playful light, To south and north the glorious hills are seen; Where hovering fancy may at will alight By pastoral dingle, or deep rocky screen. Such airs, light sallies of thy cheerful heart, A living joy, dear friend, to all impart. JOHN KEBLEL BY POETS OF THE PAST. X33 OXFORD. (FROM BAGLEY, AT 8 A.M.) HE flood is round thee, but thy towers as yet Are safe, and clear as by a summer's sea Pierce the calm morning mist, serene and free, To point in silence heavenward. There are met Thy foster-children;-there in order set Their nursing-fathers, sworn to Heaven and thee (An oath renewed this hour on bended knee,) Ne'er to betray their Mother nor forget.Lo I on the top of each aerial spire What seems a star by day, so high and bright, It quivers from afar in golden light: But 'tis a form of earth, though touched with fire Celestial, raised in other days to tell How, when they tired of prayer, Apostles fell. JOHN KEBLE. ENGLISH SONNE-TS AT HOOKER'S TOMB. HE grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a shower, A silent shower, that trickled down so still Scarce drooped beneath its weight the tenderest flower, Scarce could you trace it on the twinkling rill, Or moss-stone bathed in dew. It was an hour Most meet for prayer beside thy lowly grave, Most for thanksgiving meet, that Heaven such power To thy serene and humble spirit gave. ' Who sow good seed with tears shall reap in joy.' So thought I as I watched the gracious rain, And deemed it like that silent sad employ Whence sprung thy glory's harvest, to remain For ever. God hath sworn to lift on high Who sinks himself by true humility. JOHN KEBLE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 3S THE THRUSH'S NEST. ITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, That overhung a molehill large and round, I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound With joy; and, often an intruding guest, I watched her secret toils from day to day, — How true she warped the moss to form a nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay; And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted-over, shells of greeny blue; And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours, A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky. JOHN CLARE. 136 ENGLISH SONNETS. FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT. HITHER, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way? What solemn region first upon thy sight Shall break, unveiled for terror or delight?What hosts, magnificent in dread array, My spirit! when thy prison-house of clay, After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless quest! The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest, Sees but a few green branches o'er him play, And through their parting leaves, by fits revealed, A glimpse of summer sky; nor knows the field Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried. Thou art that bird!-of what beyond thee lies Far in the untracked immeasurable skies, Knowing but this-that thou shalt find thy Guide. FELICIA HEMANS. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 13T THE HUMAN SEASONS. OUR Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness-to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter, too, of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. JOHN KEATS. 138 ENGLISH SONNETS. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. HE poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: This is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury,-he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills. JOHN KEATS. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 39 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. UCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien. JOHN KEATS. rAo ENGLISH SONNETS. ADDRESSED TO HAYDON. REAT spirits now on earth are sojourning: He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: He of the rose, the violet, the spring, The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake: And lo I whose steadfastness would never take A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb. JOHN KEATS. BY POETS OF THE PAST. IAI O one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, -to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair And gentle tale of love and languishment? Returning home at evening, with an ear Catching the notes of Philomel,-an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, He mourns that day so soon has glided by: E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently. JOHN KEATS. T42 ENGLISH SONNETS. SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,Nature's observatory-whence the dell, In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell. But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refined, Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be Almostthe highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. JOHN KEATS. BY POETS OF THE PAST. T3 APPY is England I I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent: Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And half forget what world or worldling meant. Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; Enough their simple loveliness for me, Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging: Yet do I often warmly burn to see Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters. JOHN KEATS. 144 ENGLISH SONNET.S. TO SLEEP. SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! Shutting with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothest sleep! if so it please thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws, Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passed day will shine Dion my pillow, breeding many woes; Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul. JOHN KEATS. l BY POETS OF THE PAST. 145 KEATS'S LAST SONNET. RIGHIT star! would I were steadfast as thou artNot in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors.No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest; Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon to death. JOHN KEATS. 24 ENGLISH SONNETS. LIBERTY. AY, What is Freedom? What the right of souls Which all who know are bound to keep, or die, And who knows not, is dead? In vain ye pry In musty archives, or retentive scrolls, Charters and statutes, constitutions, rolls, And remnants of the old world's history:These show what has been, not what ought to be, Or teach at best how wiser Time controls Man's futile purposes. As vain the search Of restless factions, who, in lawless will, Fix the foundations of a creedless churchA lawless rule-an anarchy of ill: But what is Freedom? Rightly understood, A universal license to be good. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 147 MAY, i840. LOVELY morp, so still, so very still, X It hardly seems a growing day of Spring, Though all the odorous buds are blossoming, And the small matin birds were glad and shrill Some hours ago; but now the woodland rill Murmurs along, the only vocal thing, Save when, the wee wren flits with stealthy wing, And cons by fits and bits her evening trill. Lovers might sit on such a morn as this, An hour together, looking at the sky, Nor dare to break the silence with a kiss, Long listening for the signal of a sigh; And the sweet Nun, diffused in voiceless prayer, Feel her own soul through all the brooding air. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 145 5ENGLISH SONNETS NOVEMBER. HE mellow year is hasting to its close; The little birds have almost sung their last, I Their small notes twitter in the dreary blastThat shrill-piped harbinger of early snows; The patient beauty of the scentless rose, Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed, Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past, And makes a little summer where it grows: In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day The dusky waters shudder as they shine, The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define, And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array, Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST I" TO A DEAF AND DUMB LITTLE GIRL IKE a loose island on the wide expanse, Unconscious floating on the fickle sea, Herself her all, she lives in privacy; Her waking life as lonely as a trance, Doomed to behold the universal dance, And never hear the music which expounds The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds, The vague, mute language of the countenance. In vain for her I smooth my antic rhyme; She cannot hear it, all her little being Concentred in her solitary seeingWhat can she know of beauteous or sublime? And yet methinks she looks so calm and good. God must be with her in her solitude. HARTLEY COLERIDGE, I5o ENGLISH SONNETS. HEN we were idlers with the loitering rills, The need of human love we little noted: Our love was nature: and the peace that floated On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills: One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted That wisely doating asked not why it doated, And ours the unknown joy which knowing kills. But now I find how dear thou wert to me; That man is more than half of nature's treasure, Of that fair beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure; And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure, The hills sleep on in their eternity. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. ~s' TO A LOFTY BEAUTY FROM HER POOR KINSMAN. AIR maid, had I not heard thy baby cries, Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude, Thy mazy motions, striving to elude, Yet wooing still a parent's watchful eyes, Thy humours, many as the opal's dyes, And lovely all;-methinks thy scornful mood. And bearing high of stately womanhood,Thy brow, where Beauty sits to tyrannize O'er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee; For never sure was seen a royal bride Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride,My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee; But when I see thee at thy father's side, Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. tow 3ENGLISH SONNETS, THE FIRST MAN. HAT was't awakened first the untried ear Of that sole man who was all human kind? Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind, Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere? The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near, Their lulling murmurs all in one combined? The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind Bursting the brake-in wonder, not in fear, Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground Send forth mysterious melody to greet The gracious pressure of immaculate feet? Did viewless seraphs rustle all around, Making sweet music out of air as sweet? Or his own voice awake him with its sound? HARTLEY COLERIDGE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. XSI A CONFESSION. ONG time a child, and still a child, when years Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I; For yet I lived like one not born to die: A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears, No hope I needed, and I knew no fears, But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking I waked to sleep no more; at once o'ertaking The vanguard of my age, with all arrears Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man, Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey, For I have lost the race I never ranA rathe December blights my lagging May; And still I am a child, though I be old: Time is my debtor for my years untold. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. Jb4 ENGLISH SONNETS. HOMER. AR from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain As the clear noon-day sun, an 'orb of song' Lovely and bright is seen amid the throng Of lesser stars, that rise, and wax, and wane, The transient rulers of the fickle main'; One constant light gleams thro' the dark and long And narrow aisle of memory. How strong, How fortified with all the numerous train Of truths wert thou, great poet of mankind, Who told'st in verse as mighty as the sea, And various as the voices of the wind, The strength of passion rising in the glee Of battle. Fear was glorified by thee, And Death.is lovely in thy tale enshrined. HARTLEY COLERIDGL BY POETS OF THE PAST. 155 lIITHER is gone the wisdom and the power That ancient sages scattered with the notes Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats In the void air; even at this breathing hour, In every cell and every blooming bower The sweetness of old lays is hovering still; But the strong soul, the self-constraining will, The rugged root that bare the winsome flower Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells, Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays, Then might our pretty moder Philomels Sustain our spirits with their roundelays. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. z56 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO A FRIEND. E parted on the mountains, as two streams From one clear spring pursue their several ways; And thy fleet course hath been thro' many a maze In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams Brightened the tresses that old poets praise; Where Petrarch's patient love and artful lays, And Ariosto's song of many themes, Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook, As close pent up within my native dell, Have crept along from nook to shady nook, Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell. Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide, O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. BY' POETS OF THE FAST. 157 THE LONE THORN. ENEATH the scant shade of an aged thorn, Silvered with age, and mossy with decay, I stood, and there bethought me of its mom Of verdant lustyhood, long passed away; Of its meridian vigour, now outworn By cankering years, and by the tempest's sway Bared to the pitying glebe.-Companionless, Stands the gray thorn complaining to the windOf all the old wood's leafy loveliness The sole memorial that lags behind; Its compeers perished in their youthfulness, Though round the earth their roots seem'd firmly twined: How sad it is to be so anchored here As to outlive one's mates, and die without a tear I WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. ENGLISH SONNETS. AUTUMN. OW bravely Autumn paints upon the sky The gorgeous fame of summer which is fled Hues of all flowers that in their ashes lie, Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,Like exhalations from the leafy mould, Look here how honour glorifies the dead, And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold I Such is the memory of poets old, Who on Parnassus hill have bloomed elate; Now they are laid under their marbles cold, And turned to clay, whereof they were create; But god Apollo hath them all enrolled, And blazoned on the very clouds of fate. THOMAS HOOD. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 759 SILENCE. HERE is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute and still must sleep profound; No voice is hushed-no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyena calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. THOMAS HoCD. z6o ENGLISF SONNETS. T is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapped in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this,-but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft, -and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men. THOMAS HOOD. BY POETS OF THE PAST. A SONNET TO A SONNET. ARE composition of a poet-knight, Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men, Distinguished for a polish'd lance and pen In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight; Lustrous in scholarship, in honour bright, Accomplished in all graces current then, Humane as any in historic ken, Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite; Most courteous to that race become of late So fiercely scornful of all kind advance, Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate, To Albion, plotting ever her mischance,Alas, fair verse! how false and out of date Thy phrase " sweet enemy" applied to France! THOMAS HoOD. I See page 6. M i62 ENGLISH SOWNNETS. JOY IN SORROW. IVE me thy joy in sorrow, gracious Lord, And sorrow's self shall like to joy appear! Although the world should waver in its sphere I tremble not if Thou thy peace afford; But, Thou withdrawn, I am but as a chord That vibrates to the pulse of hope and fear: Nor rest I more than harps which to the air Must answer when we place their tuneful board Against the blast,-which thrill unmeaning woe Even in their sweetness. So no earthly wing E'er sweeps me but to sadden. Oh, place Thou My heart beyond the world's sad vibratingAnd where but in Thyself? Oh, circle me That I may feel no touches save of Thee. CHAUNcY HARE TOWNSHEND. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 163 HIDDEN JOYS. LEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures seem: There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground But holds some joy, of silence or of sound, Some sprite begotten of a summer dream The very meanest things are made supreme With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand But moves a bright and million-peopled land, And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things, And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, Delight from many a nameless covert sly Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings. SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD. 164 ENGLISH SONNETS. "PATER VESTER PASCIT ILLA." UR bark is on the waters! wide around The wandering wave; above, the lonely sky: Hush I a young sea-bird floats, and that quick cry Shrieks to the levelled weapon's echoing sound: Grasp its lank wing, and on, with reckless bound I Yet, creature of the surf, a sheltering breast To-night shall haunt in vain thy far-off nest, A call unanswered search the rocky ground. Lord of Leviathan! when Ocean heard Thy gathering voice, and sought his native breeze; When whales first plunged with life, and the proud deep Felt unborn tempests heave in troubled sleep, Thou didst provide, even for this nameless bird, Home and a natural love amid the surging seas. ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. x65 THE TWAIN. WO sunny children wandered, hand in hand, By the blue waves of far Gennesaret, For there their Syrian father drew the net, With multitudes of fishes, to the land! One was the Twin! even he whose blessed name Hath in ten thousand shrines this day a fame,Thomas the Apostle,- one of the ethereal band I But he, his Hebrew brother, who can trace His name, the city where he dwelt, his place, Or grave? We know not, none may understand: There were two brethren in the field: the one Shall have no memory underneath the sun,The other shines, beacon of many a strand, A star upon the brow of night, here in the rocky land! ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER., x66 ENGLISH SONNETS. LOVE. EART of my heart! I of Love let us commune, And tell me ' howit comes?' and 'whatit is?' " Love comes! and it is therereplete withbliss; A sun of light, bringing eternal noon, New life to life; new powers, fresh flowers, its boon." But what in sooth? "Two souls in sweet accord, Each for each caring and each self unheard, Bringing life's discords into perfect tune; True to true feeling, and to nature living, Plighting no faith, nor needing proof nor proving, Taking for granted, never asking, giving, Not doubting and not fearing ' how' or 'where; Not caring if less bright or young or fair, Sure to be ever loved, and sure of loving." HELENA C. VON RANKE. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 167 THE LATTICE AT SUNRISE. S on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed, I saw my lattice prankt upon the wall, The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withalA sunny phantom interlaced with shade; ' Thanks be to heaven!' in happy mood I said, 'What sweeter aid my matins could befall Than this fair glory from the East hath made? What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all, To bid us feel and see! we are not free To say we see not, for the glory come!s Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea; His lustre pierceth through the midnight glooms; And at prime hour, behold! He follows me With golden shadows to my secret rooms I' CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. 268 ENGLISH SONNETS. ON STARTLING SOME PIGEONS. HUNDRED wings are dropt as soft as one, m Now ye are lighted! Pleasing to my sight The fearful circle of your wondering flight, Rapid and loud, and drawing homeward soon; And then, the sober chiding of your tone, As there ye sit, from your own roofs arraigning My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done, Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining: O happy, happy race I for though there clings A feeble fear about your timid clan, Yet are ye blest I with not a thought that brings Disquietude,-while proud and sorrowing man, An eagle, weary of his mighty wings, i ith anxious inquest fills his mortal span I CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. TIME AND TWILIGHT. N the dark twilight of an autumn morn, I stood within a little country-town, Wherefrom a long acquainted path went down To the dear village haunts where I was born; The low of oxen on the rainy wind, Death and the Past, came up the well-known road, And bathed my heart with tears, but stirr'd my mind To tread once more the track so long untrod; But I was warn'd, 'Regrets which are not thrust Upon thee, seek not; for this sobbing breeze Will but unman thee; thou art bold to trust Thy woe-worn thoughts among these roaring trees, And gleams of by-gone playgrounds-Is't no crime To rush by night into the arms of Time? ' CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. 170 ENGLISH SONNETS. T was her first sweet child, her heart's delight: And, though we all foresaw his early doom, We kept the fearful secret out of sight; We saw the canker, but she kiss'd the bloom. And yet it might not be: we could not brook To vex her happy heart with vague alarms, To blanch with fear her fond intrepid look, Or send a thrill through those encircling arms. She smiled upon him, waking or at rest: She could not dream her little child would die: She toss'd him fondly with an upward eye: She seem'd as buoyant as a summer spray, That dances with a blossom on its breast, Nor knows how soon it will be borne away. CHARLES TENNYSON TU NER. BY POETS OF THEE PAST. 171 A SUMMER TWILIGHT. T is a Summer's gloaming, balmy-sweet, A gloaming brightened by an infant moon, Fraught with the fairest light of middle June; The lonely garden echoes to my feet, And hark! 0 hear I not the gentle dews, Fretting the silent forest in his sleep? Or does the stir of housing insects creep Thus faintly on mine ear? Day's many hues Waned with the paling light and are no more, And none but drowsy pinions beat the air: The bat is hunting softly by my door, And, noiseless as the snow-flake, leaves his lair; O'er the still copses flitting here and there, Wheeling the self-same circuit o'er and o'er. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. 172 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE QUIET TIDE NEAR ARDROSSAN. N to the beach the quiet waters crept: But, though I stood not far within the land, No tidal murmur reached me from the strand. The mirrored clouds beneath old Arran slept. I looked again across the watery waste: The shores were full, the tide was near its height, Though scarcely heard: the reefs were drowning fast, And an imperial whisper told the might Of the outer floods, that press'd into the bay, Though all besides was silent. I delight In the rough billows, and the foam-ball's flight: I love the shore upon a stormy day; But yet more stately were the power and ease That with a whisper deepen'd all the seas. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. I73 LETTY'S GLOBE. HEN Letty had scarce passed her third glad year, And her young, artless words began to flow, One day we gave the child a coloured sphere Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know, By tint and outline, all its sea and land. She patted all the world; old empires peep'd Between her baby fingers; her soft hand Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd, And laugh'd, and prattled in her world-wide bliss; But when we turned her sweet unlearned eye On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry, " Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there! " And, while she hid all England with a kiss, Bright over Europe fell her golden hair. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. 174 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE FOREST GLADE. S one dark morn I trod a forest glade, A sunbeam entered at the further end, And ran to meet me thro' the yielding shadeAs one, who in the distance sees a friend, And, smiling, hurries to him; but mine eyes, Bewilder'd by the change from dark to bright, Received the greeting with a quick surprise At first, and then with tears of pure delight; For sad my thoughts had been-the tempest's wrath Had gloom'd the night, and made the morrow gray; That heavenly guidance humble sorrow hath, Had turned my feet into that forest-way, Just when His morning light came down the path, Among the lonely woods at early day. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 175 THE GOSSAMER-LIGHT. UICK gleam I that ridest on the gossamer! How oft I see thee, with thy wavering lance, Tilt at the midges in their evening dance, A gentle joust set on by summer air! How oft I watch thee from my garden-chair! And, failing that, I search the lawns and bowers, To find thee floating o'er the fruits and flowers, And doing thy sweet work in silence there: Thou art the poet's darling, ever sought In the fair garden or the breezy mead; The wind dismounts thee not; thy buoyant thread Is as the sonnet, poising one bright thought, That moves but does not vanish! borne along Like light,-a golden drift through all the song! CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. i76 ENGLISH SONNETS. IN AND OUT OF THE PINE-WOOD EYOND the pine-wood all look'd bright and clearAnd, ever by our side, as on we drove, The star of eve ran glimpsing through the grove, To meet us in the open atmosphere; As some fair thought, of heavenly light and force, Will move and flash behind a transient screen Of dim expression, glittering in its course Through many loop-holes, till its face is seen; Some thoughts ne'er pass beyond their close confines; Theirs is the little taper's homely lot, A woodside glimmer, distanced and forgotWhose trivial gleam, that twinkles more than shines, Is left behind to die among the pines; Our stars are carried out, and vanish not I CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 177 IRREPARABLENESS. HAVE been in the meadows all the day And gathered there the nosegay that you see, Singing within myself as bird or bee When such do field-work on a morn of May. But now I look upon my flowers, decay Has met them in my hands more fatally Because more warmly clasped,-and sobs are free To come instead of songs. What do you say, Sweet counsellors, dear friends? that I should go Back straightway to the fields and gather more? Another, sooth, may do it, but not I I My heart is very tired, my strength is low, My hands are full of blossoms plucked before, Held dead within them till myself shall die. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. N 178 ENGLISH SONNETS. GRIEF. TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to deathMost like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If it could weep, it could arise and go. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POETS OF THE PAST. I79 FINITE AND INFINITE. HE wind sounds only in opposing straits, The sea, beside the shore; man's spirit rends Its quiet only up against the ends Of wants and oppositions, loves and hates Where, worked and worn by passionate debates, And losing by the loss it apprehends, The flesh rocks round and every breath it sends Is ravelled to a sigh. ~ All tortured states Suppose a straitened place. Jehovah Lord, Make room for rest, around me! out of sight Now float me, of the vexing land abhorred, Till in deep calms of space my soul may right Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening cord, And rush exultant on the Infinite. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. I8o ENGLISH SONNETS. COMFORT. PEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat. Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet! And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber while I go In reach of Thy divinest voice complete In humanest affection-thus, in sooth, To lose the sense of losing. As a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, He sleeps the faster that he wept before. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POETS OF THE PAST. FUTURITY. ND, 0 beloved voices, upon which Ours passionately call because erelong Ye brake off in the middle of that song We sang together softly, to enrich The poor world with the sense of love, and witch The heart out of things evil,-I am strong, Knowing ye are not lost for aye among The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche In Heaven to hold our idols: and albeit He brake them to our faces and denied That our close kisses should impair their white, I know we shall behold them raised, complete, The dust swept from their beauty,-glorified, New Memnons singing in the great God-light. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 182 ENGLISSH SONNETS THE PROSPECT. ETHINKS we do as fretful children do, Leaning their faces on the window-pane To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, And shut the sky and landscape from their view: And thus, alas, since God the Maker drew A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, We miss the prospect which we are called unto By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, O man, my brother I hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong; That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along The sunset consummation-lights of death. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 183 THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young-: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow acrossnme. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,'Guess now who holds thee?'-' Death,' I said. But there, The silver answer rang,-' Not Death, but Love.' ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. I84 ENGLISH SONNETS Y own beloved, who hast lifted me From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown, And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully Shines out again, as all the angels see, Before thy saving kiss I My own, my own, Who camest to me when the world was gone, And I who looked for only God, found thee I I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad. As one who stands in dewless asphodel, Looks backward on the tedious time he had In the upper life,-so I, with bosom-swell, Make witness, here, between the good and bad, That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POETS OF THE PAST. F thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say ' I love her for her smile-her look-her way Of speaking gently,-for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day;'For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,-and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 286 ENGLISH SONNETS. S it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? And would the sun for thee more coldly shine Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read Thy thought so in the letter. I am thineBut.. so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range. Then, love me, Love! look on me-breathe on me! As brighter ladies do not count it strange, For love, to give up acres and degree, I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee! ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POErS OF THE PAST. 187 OW do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise; I love thee with the passion put to use - In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life I-and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 188 ENGLISH SONNETS. *EELOVED, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers. So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine, Here's ivy 1-take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine; Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. BY POETS OF THE PAST. i8o F I might choose, where my tired limbs shall lie f When my task here is done, the Oak's green crest Should rise above my grave-a little mound Raised in some cheerful village-cemeteryAnd I could wish, that, with unceasing sound A lonely mountain rill was murmuring byIn music-through the long soft twilight hours; And let the hand of her, whom I love best, Plant round the bright green grave those fragrant flowers, In whose deep bells the wild-bee loves to restAnd should the robin, from some neighbouring tree, Pour his enchanted song-oh, softly tread, For sure, if aught of earth can sooth the dead, He still must love that pensive melody I JOHN ANSTER. 1815. I9o ENGLISH SONNETS TO THE BRITISH OAK. HEN, sacred plant, the Druid sage of old, With reverential awe, beheld in thee The abode or emblem,of Divinity, Methinks some vague prophetic vision rolled Before his wondering eyes, and dimly told Thy future fame-thy glorious destiny: Haply e'en then, deep musing, he might see, Within thy trunk revered, that Spirit bold, Which sprung from thence in after times, and stood, Rejoicing in his might, on Ocean's flood, The guardian genius of Britannia's Isle; At whose dread voice admiring nations bow, In duteous homage,-tyrants are laid lowAnd fierce Oppression's victims learn to smile. CHARLES CROCKER. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 191 OT war, nor hurrying troops from plain to plain, Nor deed of high resolve, nor stern command, Sing I; the brow that carries trace of pain Long and enough the sons of song have scann'd: Nor lady's love in honeysuckle bower, With helmet hanging by, in stolen ease; Poets enough I deemed of heavenly power Ere now had lavished upon themes like these. My harp and I have sought a holier meed; The fragments of God's image to restore, The earnest longings of the soul to feed, And balms into the spirit's wounds to pour: One gentle voice hath bid our task God-speed; And now we search the world to hear of more. HS9NRY ALFORD. ENGLISH SONNETS. THE MASTER'S CALL. ISE, said the Master, come unto the feast:She heard the call and rose with willing feet; But thinking it not otherwise than meet For such a bidding to put on her best, She is gone from us for a few short hours Into her bridal closet, there to wait For the unfolding of the palace-gate, That gives her entrance to the blissful bowers. We have not seen her yet, though we have been Full often to her chamber-door, and oft Have listened underneath the postern green, And laid fresh flowers, and whispered short and soft; But she hath made no answer; and the day From the clear west is fading fast away. HENRY ALFORD. BY POETS OF THEB PAST. t93 UT deck the board;-for hither comes a band Of pure young spirits, fresh arrayed in white, Glistering against the newly-risen light; Over the green and dew-impearled land Blithsomely tripping forward hand in hand: Deck ye the board: and let the guest be dight In gospel wedding-garment rich and bright, And every bud that summer suns expand. For you, ye humble ones, our thickets bloom: Ye know the texture of each opening flower, And which the sunshine, and which love the gloom. The shrill of poised larks for many an hour Ye Watch; and all things gentle in your hearts Havt place, and play at call their tuneful parts. HENRY ALFORD> 0 194 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO MARY. N thy young brow, my sister, twenty years Have shed their sunshine; andthisAprilmorn Looks on theefresh and gladsome, as new-born From veiling clouds the king of day appears: Thou scarce canst order back the thankful tears That swell in thy blue eyes: nor dare to meet The happy looks that never cease to greet Thee the dear nursling of our hopes and fears. This Easter-tide together we have read How in the garden, when that weeping one Asked sadly for her Lord of some unknown, With look of sweet reproof He turned and said, Mary"-Sweet sister, when thy need shall be, That word, that look, so may He turn on thee HENRY ALFORD BY POETS OF THE PAST. 195 ADY, I bid thee to a sunny dome Ringing with echoes of Italian song: Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, And all the pleasant place is like a home. Hark, on the right with full piano tone Old Dante's voice encircles all the air; Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare, Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. Pahs thou the lintel freely: without fear Feast on the music: I do better know thee, Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear That element whence thou must draw thy life,An English maiden and an English wife. ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. <96 ENGLISH SONNETS H blessing and delight of my young heart, Maiden, who wert so lovely and so pure, I know not in what region now thou art, Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. Not the old hills on which we gazed together, Not the old faces which we both did love, Not the old books whence knowledge we did gatherNot these, but others now thy fancies move. I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, All thy companions, with their pleasant talk, And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears; So, though in body absent, I might walk With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood Did sanctify mine own to peerless good. ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 197 TO THE AUTHORESS OF "OUR VILLAGE." HE single eye, the daughter of the light; Well pleased to recognize in lowliest shade Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright: The taste severe, yet graceful, trained aright In classic depth and clearness, and repaid By thanks and honour from the wise and staid, By pleasant skill to blame and yet delight, And high communion with the eloquent throng Of those who purified our speech and songAll these are yours. The same examples lure You in each woodland, me on breezy moorWith kindred aim the same sweet path along, To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor. CHARLES KINGSLEY. ENGLISH SONNETS. ON THE RAMPARTS AT ANGOULEME. HY art thou speechless, 0 thou setting Sun? Speak to thisearth, speak to this listening scene Where Charente flows among the meadows green, And in his gilded waters, one by one, The inverted minarets of poplar quake With expectation, until thou shalt break The intolerable silence. See I he sinks Without a word; and his ensanguined bier Is vacant in the west, while far and near Behold I each coward shadow eastward shrinks. Thou dost not strive, 0 Sun, nor dost thou cry Amid thy cloud-built streets; but meek and stilt Thou dost the type of Jesus best fulfil, A noiseless revelation in the sky. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER BY POETS OF THE PAST. 199 UR thoughts are greater than ourselves, our dreams Ofttimes more solid than our acts; our hope With more of substance and of shadow teems Than our thin joys, and hath a nobler scope. 0 sons of men I there is a Presence here, Here in our undying spirits, which With an unearthly wealth doth oft enrich The reason hourly sanctified by fear. Herewith men prophesy, herewith men press To their own hearts in studious loneliness Forms greater than they dare to tell: beneath The shadow of their own imaginings They sit, withdrawn and sheltered; for a wreath Encircles them, a wreath of Angels' wings. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER. 200 ENGLISH SONNETS IKE a musician that with flying finger Startles the voice of some new instrument, And, though he know that inonestringareblent All its extremes of sound, yet still doth linger Among the lighter threads, fearing to start The deep soul of that one melodious wire, Lest it, unanswering, dash his high desire, And spoil the hopes of his expectant heart;Thus, with my mistress oft conversing, I Stir every lighter theme with careless voice, Gathering sweet music and celestial joys From the harmonious soul o'er which I fly; Yet o'er the one deep master-chord I hover, And dare not stoop, fearing to tell-I love her. WILLIAM CALDWELL ROSCOE. BY POEYS OF THE PAST. 2os AD soul, whom God, resuming what He gave, Medicines with bitter anguish of the tomb, Cease to oppress the portals of the grave, And strain thy aching sight-across the gloom. The surged Atlantic's winter-beaten wave Shall sooner pierce the purpose of the wind, Than thy storm-tossed and heavy-swelling mind Grasp the full import of his means to save. Through the dark night lie still; God's faithful grace Lies hid, like morning, underneath the sea; Let thy slow hours roll, like these weary stars, Down to the level ocean patiently; Till his loved hands shall touch the Eastern bars, And his full glory shine upon thy face. WILLIAM CALDWELL RoscoEL 202 0ENGLISH SONNETS. SOLITUDE. SOLITUDE I-amidst these ancient oaks, Whose shadows broad sleep on the mossy ground, Andbreeze-fanned boughs send fortha slumberous sound, Whose rugged trunks the hoary lichen cloaks, Where leaps the squirrel, and the raven croaksThese rifted thorns, with snaky ivy bound, In many a fold fantastic, round and round,These tree-Laocoons-which the woodman's strokes Shall never make to totter to their fall, - Which time alone shall waste,-how dear art thou To me, who commune with thy calmness now, When peaceful Evening spreads her purple pall, And Contemplation, with her scroll unfurled, Brings sad-sweet thoughts to wean me from the world THOMAS NOEL. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 203 TIME'S WAVES AVE follows wave towards the waste sea-shore, One rising where another doth subside; So day to day succeedeth evermore, Those silent waves on Time's unresting tide; And we are like the ocean-birds, that ride Upon the billows; on their summits hoar One moment now they sit, and seem to soar; the next, into the black abyss they glide:Thus we elated rise, and are deprest Upon the changeful billow of each day, In light and gloom alternate, ne'er at rest, In good nor evil ever at a stay, Yet looking still to find some halcyon nest Of peace, when all Time's waves have passed away. THOMAS NOEL. fo4 ENGLISH SONNETS. THE ACONITE. LOWER, that foretell'st a Spring thoune'er shalt see, Yet smilest still upon thy wintry day, Content with thy joy-giving destiny, Nor envying fairer flowers their festal May,0 golden-chaliced Aconite I I'll lay ' To heart the lesson that thou teachest me; I, too, contented with my times will be, And still a placid aspect will display In tempest-troubled seasons,-nor repine That others, coming after, shall enjoy A calmer day, a sunnier sky than mine; To speed the present, be my sweet employ; To cast into a stormy world my mite Of cheer, like thee, gloom-gilding Aconite I THOMAS NOEL. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 205 ]AUTY still walketh on the earth and air? Our present sunsets are as rich in gold As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled; The roses of the Spring are ever fair, 'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair, And the deep sea still foams its music old: So, if we are at all divinely-souled, This beauty will unloose our bonds of care. 'Tis pleasant, when blue skies are o'er us bending Within old starry-gated Poesy, To meet a soul set to no worldly tune, Like thine, sweet Friend I Oh, dearer this to me Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon, Or noble music with a golden ending. ALEXANDER SMITH. 0o6 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO AMERICA. OR force nor fraud shall sunder us! Oh ye Who north or south, on east or western land, Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God For God; Oh ye who in eternal youth Speak with a living and creative flood This universal English, and do stand Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole, Far, yet unsevered-children brave and free Of the great mother-tongue, and ye shall be Lords of an empire wide as Shakspeare's soul, Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream. SYDNEY DOBELL. BY POETS OF THE PAST 2o7 TO A FRIEND IN BEREAVEMENT. O comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I In Sorrow's cause with Sorrow intercede. Burst not the great heart, -this is all I plead; Ah, sentence it to suffer, not to die. "Comfort?" If Jesus wept at BethanyThat doze and nap of Death-how may we bleed Who watch the long sleep that is sleep indeed I Pointing to Heaven I but remind you why On earth you still must mourn. He who, being bold For life-to-come, is false to the past sweet Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. For why to live again if not to meet? And why to meet if not to meet in love? And why in love if not in that dear love of old? SYDNEY DOBELL. 208 ENGLISH SONNETS. AD MATREM. (MARCH 13, 1862.) FT in the after-days, when thou and I Have fallen from the scope of human view, When, both together, under the sweet sky We sleep beneath the daisies and the dew, Men will recall thy gracious presence bland, Conning the pictured sweetness of thy face; Will pore o'er paintings by thy plastic hand, And vaunt thy skill, and tell thy deeds of grace. Oh may they then, who crown thee with true bays, Saying, "What love unto her son she bore!" Make this addition to thy perfect praise, " Nor ever yet was mother worshipped more 1" So shall I live with thee, and thy dear fame Shall link my love unto thine honoured name. JULIAN FANE. BY POETS OF THE PAST 300 AD MATREM. (MARCH 13, 1864.) USIC, and frankincense of flowers, belong To this sweet festival of all the year. Take, then, the latest blossom of my song, And to Love's canticle incline thine ear. What is it that Love chaunts? thy perfect praise. What is it that Love prays? worthy to prove. What is it Love desires? thy length of days. What is it that Love asks? return of love. Ah, what requital can Love ask more dear Than by Love's priceless self to be repaid? Thy liberal love, increasing year by year, Hath granted more than all my heart hath prayed, And, prodigal as Nature, makes me pine To think how poor my love compared with thine I JULIAN FAN. P tto ENGLISH SONNETS. AD MATREM. (MARCH 13, 1870.) -0, like a wanderer from the world of shades, Back to the firm earth and familiar skies, Back to that light of love that never fadesThe unbroken sunshine of thy blissful eyes, I come-to greet thee on this happy day That lets a fresh pearl on thy life appear; That decks thy jewelled age with fresh array Of good deeds done within the circled year; So art thou robed in majesty of grace, In regal purple of pure womanhood; Throned in thy high pre-eminence of place; Sceptred and crowned, a very Queen of Good. Receive my blessing, perfect as thou art, Queen of all good, and sovereign of my heart. JULIAN FANM. BY POETS OF THE PAST 211 A DISAPPOINTMENT. PRING, of a sudden, came to life one day. Ere this, the winter had been cold and chill. That morning first the summer air did fill The world, making bleak March seem almost May. The daffodils were blooming golden gay; The birch trees budded purple on the hill; The rose, that clambered up the window-sill, Put forth a crimson shoot. All yesterday The winds about the casement chilly blew, But now the breeze that played about the door, So caught the dead leaves that I thought there flew Brown butterflies up from the grassy floor. -But someone said you came not. Ah, too true! And I, I thought that winter reigned once more. ALICE MARY BLUNT. 212 ENGLISH SONNETS. BROTHER AND SISTER. UR mother bade us keep the trodden ways, Stroked down my tippet, set my brother's frill, Then with the benediction of her gaze Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still Across the homestead to the rookery elms, Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound, So rich for us, we counted them as realms With varied products: here were earth-nuts found, And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade; Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes grew, The large to split for pith, the small to braid; While over all the dark rooks cawing flew, And made a happy strange solemnity, A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me, GEORGE. ELIOT. BY POETS OF THE PAST. 213 BROTHER AND SISTER. HUS rambling we were schooled in deepest lore, And learned the meanings that give words a soul, The fear, the love, the primal passionate store, Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole: Those hours were seed to all my after good; My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch, Took easily as warmth a various food To nourish the sweet skill of loving much. For who in age shall roam the earth and find Reasons for loving that will strike out love With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed mind? Were reasons sown as thick as stars above, 'Tis love must see them, as the eye sees light: Day is but Number to the darkened sight. GEORGE ELIOT. 2I4 ENGLISH SONNETS. TO A BROOKLET. DEEP unlovely brooklet, moaning slow Through moorish fen in utter loneliness! The partridge cowers beside thy loamy flow In pulseful tremor, when with sudden press The huntsman fluskers through the rustled heather. In March thy sallow-buds from vermeil shells Break satin-tinted, downy as the feather Of moss:chat, that among the purplish bells Breasts into fresh new life her three unborn. The plover hovers o'er thee, uttering clear And mournful-strange his human cry forlorn. While wearily, alone, and void of cheer, Thou guid'st thy nameless waters from the fen, To sleep unsunned in an untrampled glen. DAVID GRAY. BY POETS OF THE PAS2. 215 THE LUGGIE. FOR the days of sweet Mythology, When dripping Naiads taught their streams to glide I When, 'mid the greenery, one would ofttimes spy An Oread tripping with her face aside. The dismal realms of Dis by Virgil sung, Whose shade led Dante, in his virtue bold, All the sad grief and agony among, O'er Acheron, that mournful river old, Ev'n to the Stygian tide of purple gloom! Pan in the forest making melody! And far away where hoariest billows boom, Old Neptune's steeds with snorting nostrils high? These were the ancient days of sunny song; Their memory yet how dear to the poetic throng. DAVID GRAY. s16 ENGLISH SONNETS. SUNSET. AY-like a conqueror marching to his rest, The warfare finished and the victory won, And all the pageant of his triumph doneSeeks his resplendent chamber in the West: Yon clouds, like pursuivants and heralds drest In gorgeous blazonry, troop slowly on, Bearing abroad the banners of the sun That proudly stream o'er many a warrior's crest. In the azure field a solitary star Lifts its pale signal, and the glorious train Of errant sunbeams, straggling from afar, Reform their glittering ranks, and join again Their father Phoebus in his golden car, Whose panting steeds have snuffed the western main. GEORGE MORINE. I I r ASI -T-41% I I La brevita' del sonetto non cornporta che una sola parola sia vana, ed il vero, subietto e materia del sonetto debbe essere, qualche acuta e gentile sentenza, narrata attamente, ed in pochi versi ristretta, e fuggendo, la oscurith e durezza.' Comment. di Lor. die Med. sofira i suoi sonetti. i1:oteS. HE two sonneteers that preceded Spenser, namely, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey, are not included in the foregoing selection, as their sonnets are not such as would please, or interest, the large majority of modern readers. To Wyatt, however, must be attributed the honour of having written the first English Sonnet, for, as Mr. Deshler points out in his interesting Afternoons with the Poets, many of his sonnets are said to have been addressed to Anne Boleyn before her connection with Henry the Eighth, and must therefore have been written when the Earl of Surrey was not more than fifteen years of age. The following, in which the poet 'Relinquisheth the Pursuit,' was probably composed about the time of that lady's marriage to 220 NO TES. the King, and will be esteemed by poetic antiquarians as being the work of the earliest English sonneteer:Whoso list to hunt? I know where is a hind I But as for me, alas I I may no more, The vain travail hath wearied me so sore; I am of them that furthest come behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore, Fainting I follow: I leave off, therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,As well as I, may spend his time in vain I And graven with diamonds in letters plain, There is written her fair neck round about,"Noli me tangere; for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame." This is a crude and faulty composition, and those by the Earl of Surrey, his friend and contemporary, are by no means perfect, although the latter is one of the poets who have been honoured with the title of "The English Petrarch." The sonnet on Sardanapalus is perhaps his best, and is here given as a fair example of his power of versification: The Assyrian King, in peace, with foul desire And filthy lusts that stained his regal heart: NOTES. 22Z In war, that should set princely hearts on fire, Did yield, vanquished for want of martial art. The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange, And harder than his lady's side his targe; From glutton feasts to soldier's fare a change; His helmet far above a garland's charge: Who scarce the name of manhood did retain, Drenched in sloth and womanish delight, Feeble of spirit, impatient of pain, When he had lost his honour and his right, (Proud time of wealth, in storms appalled with dread,) Murdered himself, to show some manful deed. It required no extraordinary perceptionto discover whose head this little cap was intended to fit, and one is scarcely surprised to find that the King afterwards thought proper, under some pretext or other, to order Surrey's execution. His Majesty was himself somewhat of a sonneteer, for Warton in his History of English Poetry states, "I have been told that the late Lord Eglintoun had a genuine book of manuscript sonnets written by King Henry the Eighth." He was also skilled in musical composition, and Erasmus attests that he composed some church services. As regards sonnet-writing, however, he is not the only sovereign we have had that has indulged in the composition of this form of verse, as James the First has 222 NO TES. left us more than one example of his poetic genius, and his sonnet in honour of Sir Philip Sidney is not entirely without merit. Page I. Easter Morning and Willing Bondage are the gems of Spenser's Amoretti; they may justly be classed with those sonnets that are of the very highest excellence. Page o1. Constable, who was a Roman Catholic and probably a member of the Yorkshire family of that name, was inferior as a poet to several of his contemporaries, but the praise given to him by Warton in the following criticism is not excessive, or undeserved:-" It would not be at all difficult to select some very favourable and pleasing specimens of Constable's skill in versification. If he had not in any high degree the true genius of poetry, at least he may be said to have possessed a large share of poetical taste and enthusiasm, and while he steered clear of two cardinal vices of the age, coarseness and insipidity, to have produced a considerable number of sonnets of uncommon elegance and even beauty."-Perhaps the one entitled Favour, which has been omitted from previous sonnet-anthologies, is nevertheless in some respects the most pleasing of his compositions, although Mr. Minto has NOVTES. 223 tightly described that on page 1 i as " the most exquisite of his sonnets for sweet colour and winning fancy." Page ISo " There is, after all, nothing more remarkable or fascinating in English poetry than these personal revelations of the mind of our greatest poet. We read them again and again, and find each time some new proof of his almost superhuman insight into human nature; of his ununrivalled mastery over all the tones of love. "-F. T. PALGRAVE. "The student of Shakspere is drawn to the sonnets not alone by their ardour and depth of feeling, their fertility and condensation of thought, their exquisite felicities of phrase, and their frequent beauty of rhythmical movement, but in a peculiar degree by the possibility that here, if nowhere else, the greatest of English poets may-as Wordsworth puts it-have unlocked his heart."-E. DOWDEN. These two paragraphs clearly represent the almost unanimous opinion of the present generation respecting Shakespeare's sonnets, and one reads with astonishment the wondrous criticism of George Steevens to the effect that Thomas Watson was "a more elegant sonneteer than 224 NOTES. Shakespeare." Watson was a contemporary of the great dramatist, and the following may be given as a rather favourable specimen of his work:I saw the object of my pining thought Within a garden of sweet Nature's placing; Wherein an arbour artificial wrought, By workman's wondrous skill the garden gracing, Did boast his glory, glory far renowned, For in his shady boughs my mistress slept; And with a garland of his branches crowned, Her dainty forehead from the Sun he kept Imperious Love upon her eyelids tending, Playing his wanton sports at every beck, And into every finest limb descending, From eyes to lips, from lips to ivory neck; And every limb supplied, and t' every part Had free access, but durst not touch her heart. Page 28. Nothing could be more charming, or sweetertoned, than this sonnet on Content, and the one entitled The Talent is but little inferior. It is surprising to find both Constable and Barnes omitted from Leigh Hunt's Book of the Sonnet, -while Mr. John Dennis, in the Notes to his selection, states that he " has been unable to find one sonnet, out of the large number written by Barnes, that is adapted to his collection." If, as Dr. Grosart NOTES. 225 states, Ah, Sweet Content might for its " sweet, soft simpleness," have formed part of the Arcadia,-the quaint solemn beauty of The Talent might have added another leaf to the wreaths that encircle the browhs of Donne and George Herbert, It may be mentioned that Barnes was born in the county of York about the year 1568, and was the younger son of Dr. Barnes, Bishop of Durham: he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and subsequently accompanied the Earl of Essex into France. Those subscribers who have the good fortune of possessing copies of Dr. Grosart's excellent reprint of Barnes' poems tre much to be congratulated. Page 31. Drummond of Hawthornden, has been designated, and rightly, " the Scottish Petrarch ": with the exception of Shakespeare he is the most important sonneteer before Milton, and his compositions are both melodious and picturesque. One of the most remarkable of his sonnets is that on Mary Magdalen, which for striking and bold originality, for freshness of thought and expression, for delicious imagery and tender pathos, may compare favourably with our best English sonnets. It should be mentioned that his well-known sonnet beginning Q 226 NOTES. "Alexis, here she stayed," is addressed to William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, who was himself a poet, and has the honour (so far as is known) of having written the first Dialogue sonnet in English, which is here given for that reason:A. What art thou, in such sort that wail'st thy fall, And comes surcharged with an excessive grief? H. A woeful wretch, that comes to crave relief, And was his heart that now hath none at all. A. Why dost thou thus to me unfold thy state, As if with thy mishaps I would embroil me? H. Because the love I bare to you did spoil me, And was the instrument of my hard fate:A. And dare so base a wretch so high aspire, As for to plead for interest in my grace? Go, get thee hence I Or if thou dost not cease I vow to burn thee with a greater fire. H. Ah, ah,-this great unkindness stops my breath, Since those that I love best procure my death. 1604. NOTESA. 22 Page 40. It may possibly be urged by those who are not conversant with the history of the Sonnet that these two examples by Robert Herrick are not sonnets at all. Such objectors may well be referred to a short paper by no less an authority than Samuel Taylor Coleridge, entitled "What is a Sonnet? " which they will find in Blackwood's "Edinburgh Magazine," for June, I 832. The form used by Herrick is as legitimate as that in which Shakespeare's sonnets are written, and it is that adopted by Thomas Carew in his sonnet Love's Force, by Edmund Waller, by Cotton, and more especially by William Habington, the most productive sonneteer of Herrick's contemporaries, whose well-known collection of poems, Castara, is mainly composed of sonnets written in this form. The following may be quoted as a representative example of Habington's style:Where sleeps the north-wind when the south inspires Life in the spring, and gathers into quires The scattered nightingales; whose subtle ears Heard first the harmonious language of the spheres; Whence hath the stone magnetic force to allure The enamoured iron; from a seed impure Or natural did first the mandrake grow; What power i' th' ocean makes it ebb and flow; 228 NO TES. What strange materials is the azure sky Compacted of; of what its brightest eye The ever-flaming sun; what people are In the unknown world; what worlds in every star; Let envious fancies at this secret rove; Castara, what we know we'll practice, love. Another sonnet, also addressed to Castara, begins:By those chaste lamps which yield a silent light To the cold urns of virgins; by that night Which guilty of no crime, doth only hear The vows of recluse nuns and the anthrit's prayer;and ends:Thus my bright Muse in a new orb shall move, And even teach religion how to love. These lines are of themselves, perhaps, sufficient to prove that Habington was a poet, and one gifted with a fairly keen perception of the beautiful, yet it is to be regretted that he did not compose his sonnets in the Guittonian form, instead of following the example of Shakespeare and adopting a loose nondescript variation. The earliest fourteen-lined poem of this description that we remember to have met with is Lyly's Cupid and Campaspe, which is described in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," as an "exquisite sonnet." The latest NOTES. 229 example that we know of is Mr. Edward Carpenter's In Mortem F. D. Maurice, which will be found at page I44 of English Sonnets by Living Writers. Page 45. So much has been written about the sonnets of Milton that it is unnecessary to here eulogize these "soul-animating strains," as Wordsworth wisely designates them. The nearest approach that has been made to their severe grandeur is to be found in the Rev. Thomas Russell's At Lemnos (page 69) and few sonnets have received such high praise as this has had bestowed upon it by no less illustrious critics than Cary, Landor, Wordsworth, Southey, &c. It should be observed, however, that Coleridge seems to have preferred the sonnet given at page 70. But "nemo solus sapit!" Page 60. When Bowles first published his sonnets he was accused of having imitated those of Charlotte Smith. In what high estimation this lady's work was still held nearly thirty years after her death, may be gathered from the fact that the late Rev. Alexander Dyce included no fewer than nine of her sonnets in his Selection, whereas he only gives one by Keats, and entirely omits those of Shelley and Byron. 230 NOTES. Page 62. The whole of this sonnet shows a master's touch. As might be expected, the best sonnets have been written by the greatest poets-by Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth,-and one is not surprised, therefore, to find that this by Burns is so good. The first four, and last two, lines are especially excellent. Page 65. This-Echo and Silence-is one of the most famous of sonnets, and won no little praise for its author. Southey wrote respecting it, "I know not any poem, in any language, more beautifully imaginative." It is no doubt a highly finished and pleasing composition, and perhaps it were hypercritical to inquire why Echo is depicted as wearing a " robe of dark-green hue." Page 87. The sonnets of S. T. Coleridge are far from being his best work, yet two of them are unquestionably good, namely, Nature and Farewell to Love. Perhaps the very worst of all his sonnets-and he wrote, if we remember rightly, about five-and-twenty-is that To the Author of " The Robbers," of which Wordsworth very justly observed that it was " too much of a rant" for his taste. Page 94. To Innocence. Lamb was probably not fax wrong in thinking that this was the best of his "ewe NOTES. 231 lambs," as he playfully called his sonnets. It is certainly far more pleasing than the one on Work, with its prosaic "dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood," and Satan's "pensive working-day 'mid rotatory burnings!" While it is less objectionable than his sonnet on Leisure, with its comic "white top of Methusalem,"-and the dull, unpoetic lines, Which only works and business can redressImprobus Labor, which my spirits hath broke. At the same time this, his favourite "ewe lamb," is not altogether without blemish, for Innocence does not become " awful " to ordinary men and women, even when it has, in a measure, departed from them; and most readers will probably agree in thinking that the finest and noblest of Lamb's sonnets,-and a very fine and noble sonnet it certainly is,-is that entitled To a Friend. Page 96. There is a sonnet by Lord Herbert of Cher bury, containing a somewhat similar idea to that of Blanco White's, of which the last lines, referring to Night, are as follows:When thou dost reign, The characters of fate shine in the skies, And tell us what the heavens do ordain: 232 NOTrES. But when earth's common Light shines to our eyes Thou so retir'st thyself, that thy disdain All revelation unto man denies. But there is another sonnet by Blanco White-he only wrote two-written some years before his Night and Death, the last three lines of which clearly foreshadow ' the subsequent composition, and which, as it has not been printed in any previous selection of sonnets, is here given ON HEARING MYSELF FOR THE FIRST TIME CALLED AN OLD MAN. A)t. 5o. Ages have rolled within my breast, though yet Not nigh the bourn to fleeting man assigned: Yes: old-alas I how spent the struggling mind Which at the noon of life is fain to set I My dawn and evening have so closely met That men the shades of night begin to find Darkening my brow; and heedless, not unkind, Let the sad warning drop without regret. Gone Youth! had I thus missed thee, nor a hope Were left of thy return beyond the tomb, I could curse life:-But glorious is the scope Of an immortal soul 1-0 Death I thy gloom, Short, and already tinged with coming light, Is to the Christian but a summer's night I Page 98. Horace Smith's sonnets appear to have been ANOTES. 233 overlooked:-the first eight lines of this, on A Piping Faun,. have somewhat of the pleasing melody of Mr. Andrew Lang's Bion, which is given at page 35 of English Sonnets by Living Writers. Page o09. Rev. Charles Strong was a friend of Dean Alford, and they were both Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford. The "Athenaeum," in 1838, observes " Mr. (now Archbishop) Trench, if we recollect right, was highly praised by that modern guardian of sonnets, Christopher North, for his exquisite performance on the fourteenstringed lute. To us, he seems to linger behind others of his compeers; we need but name one, Mr. Strong, who far excels him." Much as we admire these richly-coloured compositions by Charles Strong, we are not inclined to concur with the above criticism, for why compare Old Crome with Tintoretto, or Marcus Aurelius with Mr. Ruskin? Page 124. The sonnets of Thomas Doubleday were published anonymously in i8x8, and were honoured with an entire article in Blackwood's " Edinburgh Magazine," in 1822. The writer of the paper remarks:-" We have no hesitation in saying that, next to Wordsworth and 234 2NOTES. Bowles, this anonymous poet, for he is a poet, is the best writer of sonnets in our day." And this was written the year after the death of Keats I Page 125. Ozymandias is the one sonnet by Shelley which has won for itself a niche beside such masterpieces as Milton's Massacre in Piedmont, Keats' Chapman's Homer, and Blanco White's Night and Death; and yet there is another sonnet by Shelley which is but little inferior to it, namely, that beginning, " Ye hasten to the dead I What seek ye there? " Page 130. Dean Milman, the illustrious author of the "History of the Jews," and "I History of Christianity," was the son of Sir Francis Milman, Bart., and was born in London in 1791. He was educated at Eton, and Brasenose College, Oxford, and obtained the Newdigate Prize in 1812, the subject of the poem being the Apollo Belvidere. His tragedy of Fazio was produced at Drury Lane on February 5, 18i8, and afterwards in America, the acting of Miss Fanny Kemble contributing to its success. Other plays and poems followed this in rapid succession, but it is as a historian, and as a good, wise, and much beloved man,rather than as a poet, that Milman will descend NOTES. 235 to posterity. Ile belonged to the Broad or liberal section of the Church, and ranks with Archbishop Whately, F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and the late Dean Stanley as leaders of that school. Page I60. The sonnets of Hood scarcely appear to have received the recognition that they deserve. They have a strength of thought, and clearness of expression that should insure them a higher rank than they have yet been permitted to take. That on page i60 is indeed almost unequalled for solemn, tender pathos. Page 169. Time and Twilight. This sonnet is, we believe, highly esteemed by the Laureate. Perhaps of all his brother's sonnets The Quiet Tide near Ardrossan, and The Lattice at Sunrise, will be most admired by cultured judges, but amongst ordinary readers Letty's Globe will probably be the favourite. Charles Turner's compositions are marked by a pleasant simplicity and beauty, and no one can deny either their originality, or the poetic genius with which they are inspired. But, as an old writer quaintly observes, " a good piece, the painters say, must have good muscling, as well as colouring and drapery," and there is, perhaps, 236 NO TES. just a slight defect in this respect in some of his poems, though not in those quoted in this volume. The defect becomes more apparent if they are compared with sonnets like those by Mr. D. G. Rossetti, but it is only fair to add that even the sonnets of Shakespeare or Milton seem to lose somewhat of their grandeur when compared with Mr. Rossetti's Refusal of Aid between Nations, or his noble sonnet entitled The Sun's Shame. Page i90. The author of this sonnet, The British Oak, -which Southey pronounced to be one of the best in the language-was born in humble life, and is, perhaps, not unworthy to be ranked with such poets as Clare and Bloomfield. The late Mr. Lower, in his Worthies of Sussex, stated, somewhat extravagantly, that The Oak had rarely been excelled in the whole round of English poetry. It is, however, chiefly remarkable as being the composition of a poor labouring man. We have to thank the Rev. Thomas Agar Holland, who was personally acquainted with the author, for kindly calling our attention to it. Page 202. Solitude. This sonnet, quoted in the "Atheneum" for I842, has not been included in pre NOTES. 2137 vious sonnet-anthologies; it is, however, one which will bear comparison with the best, and has somewhat of the calm serenity of Lord Hanmer's Pine Woods. (See page 24 of English Sonnets by Living Writers.) It is taken from his Rhymes and Roundelays, published in I841. Miss Mitford, in her Recollections of a Literary Life writes: " Mr. Noel resides in a beautiful place in that beautiful neighbourhood (Taplow), leading the life of an accomplished but somewhat secluded country gentleman;-a most enviable life, and one well adapted to the observation of nature and to the production of poetry, but by no means so well calculated to make a volume of poems extensively known." There is a quaint and striking poem by Noel entitled The Pauper's Drive which is perhaps the most popular of his compositions, and which is included in Mr. Thomas Solly's Coronal of English Verse. Page 211. Brother and Sister. These two Shakespearian quatorzains are fairly representative of George Eliot's surpassing genius, and hei deep insight into human nature and the eternal forces from which it springs. Page 213. A Disappointment. This is said to have 238 NOTES. been the author's sole composition in verse. It is a poem that lingers pleasantly in the memory: indeed, it is a dainty creation of a sweet and delicate beauty, and, in the words of the Portuguese aphorism, 'tis shut with a golden key. It has been previously published by ' Proteus' amongst his own very remarkable sonnets. Page 216. George Morine died at the town of Doncaster in I872, aged sixty-three. His poems were printed for private circulation only. We have to thank the Rev. R. Wilton for bringing them to our notice. CtWWtCKC PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ENGLISH SONNETS by Living Writers; Selected and Arranged, with a Note on the History of the Sonnet. Fcap. 8vo, 4s. 6d. Opinions of the Press. ATHENAEUM. " Quite a little treasury of poetic wealth." ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. "Those interested in this form of verse have reason to be grateful to Mr. Waddington, since he gives them in one delicate little volume a large number of copyright sonnets by various hands. Many of the examples he has chosen are of great beauty, as is to be expected in a collection taken from the works of Tennyson, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, Frances Anne Kemble, D. G. Rossetti, Lord Lytton, Sebastian Evans, and many others. Two sonnets by Mr. Waddington himself are placed by him at the end of the volume, as he says, 'in order not to offend any author by placing him at the very end.' This, for a poet, is a very modest reason; but we must accept it as the true one. In any case, the last sonnet in the book excels the last but oneand that may compare favourably with many that take precedence of it. His note on 'The Sonnet, its History and Composition' is well written and valuable." THE ACADEMY. "Never in England, except in the Elizabethan time, and hardly ever out of Italy, except in France at the saume period, and again in our own day, would it have been possible to get together such a collection. Nor is it remarkable only for bulk and for general formal excellence. It is invidious to specify individuals in sucha case; but the sonnet work of Mr. D. G. Rossetti alone would be enough to enable any age to hold up its head with the best in this kind, and not a few of the many writers whom Mr. Waddington has laid under contribution come very close to Mr. Rossetti." THE SATURDAY REVIEW. " This selection is a singularly attractive one, and its value is enshanced by the interesting ' Note,' as the editor modestly calls it, on the history of the sonnet which is appended to the volume." OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. PALL MALL GAZETTE. " We think that the editor has done his work very well indeed, and we are sure that revilers of contemporary poetry ought to feel themselves somewhat put to shame by this collection of contemporary poems in a form which has been sanctioned as the subject of special thought and special care by almost all the greatest poets of the last 400 years... The critical opinions expressed in Mr. Waddington's note on the sonnet are almost wholly sound, and, in especial, he is perfectly right in remarking on the great inferiority of Milton's sonnets to those of Shakespeare and Wordsworth. Nowhere to our knowledge is the history of the sonnet better pt in a short space." NOTES AND QUERIES. Mr. Tennyson who is here represented by' Montenegro,' is notoriously not at his own level in this form. Mr. Matthew Arnold and Mr. Rossetti are more fortunate, and it is difficult to say which is the better.... Next to these two masters comes Mr. Longfellow, whose sonnets on Dana's burial, and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, are among the best work of his tuneful and serene old age. After these, again, there are a crowd of writers, most of whom follow them at no long interval. The sonnets of Mrs. Kemble, of Archbishop Trench, of Mr. J. A. Symonds, Prof. Dowden, Mr. E. Gosse, and Mr. George Macdonald are of a high order of excellence. Many of the best examples in this volume e ea le n h oleare suggested by famous names. Such are Mr. Ernest Myers's Milton, Mr. Watson's Beethoven, Mr. Lang's Homer, Mr. Brodie's Keats, and Mr. Richard Garnett's Dante. Of other writers whose work we have found especially attractive may be mentioned Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Monkhouse, and Lord Hanmer, whose Old Fiseris as clear-aired as Theocritus.The selection is made with great skill, and (we suspect) with much critical restraint. It is also rendered more valuableby acareful Note upon the Sonnet, in which as well by examples in the body of the book, the editor shows that he himself possesses a practical and very successful knowledge of the form." SPECTATOR. " Mr. Waddington has executed his task with care and judgment, and we believe that his book will prove a pleasant possession to a not inconsiderable number of readers.... At one tune, a sonnet must always be addressed to the eyebrow, or some other possession, of a mistress; then the fashion changes and people weary of a succession of short poems, each setting forth some quality of the adored one. 69-6 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DATE DUE Reviewed by Presernvtion 1997 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 03890 3954I 111 3 9015 03890 3954 DO NOT REMOVI OR MUTILATE CARI i By..'I f 4,2 $ t I~ I. vfe., - lily. -i -