Nor in the chains of thine own indolence
Slumber enervate, while the joys of sense
Engross thee, and thou say’st, “I ask no more.”--
Wise men the shepherd’s slumber will deplore
When the rapacious wolf has leapt the fence,
And ranges thro’ the fold.--My son, dispense
Those laws, that justice to the wrong’d restore.--
The common-weal should be the first pursuit
Of the crown’d warrior, for the royal brows
The people first enwreath’d.--They are the root,
The king the tree. Aloft he spreads his boughs
Glorious; but learn, impetuous youth, at length,
Trees from the root alone derive their strength.
SONNET LV.
OH THE QUICK TRANSITION FROM WINTER TO SUMMER, IN THE YEAR 1785.
Loud blew the north thro’ April’s pallid days,
Nor grass the field, nor leaves the grove obtains,
Nor crystal sun-beams, nor the gilded rains,
That bless the hours of promise, gently raise
Warmth in the blood, without that fiery blaze,
Which makes it boil along the throbbing veins.--
Albion, displeased, her own loved Spring surveys
Passing, with volant step, o’er russet plains;
Sees her to Summer’s fierce embraces speed,
Pale, and unrobed,--Faithless! thou well may’st hide
Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head,
That did’st, neglecting thy distinguish’d isle,
In Winter’s icy arms so long abide,
While Britain vainly languish’d for thy smile!
SONNET LVI.
TO A TIMID YOUNG LADY, DISTRESSED BY THE ATTENTIONS OF AN AMIABLE AND
ACCEPTED LOVER.
What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
Fair Zillia!--Ah! more dear to Love the gaze
That dwells upon its object, than the rays
Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning’s lambent flash, when neither rise
Thunder, nor storm.--I mark, while transport plays
Warm in thy lover’s eye, what dread betrays
Thy throbbing heart:--yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet’st thou so swift away?--like the young hind,[88]
That bending stands the fountain’s brim beside,
When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!
SONNET LVII.
WRITTEN THE NIGHT PRECEDING THE FUNERAL OF MRS CHARLES BUCKERIDGE.[89]
In the chill silence of the winter eve,
Thro’ Lichfield’s darken’d streets I bend my way
By that sad mansion, where NERINA’S clay
Awaits the Morning Knell;--and awed perceive,
In the late bridal chamber, the clear ray
Of numerous lights; while o’er the ceiling stray
Shadows of those who frequent pass beneath
Round the pale Dead--What sounds my senses grieve!
For now the busy hammer’s stroke appals,
That, “in dread note of preparation,” falls.
Closing the sable lid!--With sighs I hear
These solemn warnings from the house of woes;
Pondering how late, for young NERINA, there,
Joyous, the love-illumin’d morn arose.
SONNET LVIII.
Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
The Parian statue, bending o’er the Urn,
The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
It pays Affection’s debt, is due concern
To the for Ever Absent, tho’ it mourn
Fashion’s allotted time. If Time consumes,
While life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
Memory should hourly feed;--if, thro’ each day,
She with whate’er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish’d frame,
O! can the alien heart expect to prove,
In worlds of light and life, a re-united love!
SONNET LIX.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY MARIANNE CARNEGIE,
Passing her winters at Ethic House on the Coast of Scotland, with
her Father, Lord Northesk, who retired thither after the death of
his excellent Countess.
WRITTEN FEBRUARY 1787.
Lady, each soft effusion of thy mind,
Flowing thro’ thy free pen, shows thee endued
With taste so just for all of wise, and good,
As bids me hope thy spirit does not find,
Young as thou art, with solitude combined
That wish of change, that irksome lassitude,
Which often, thro’ unvaried days, obtrude
On youth’s rash bosom, dangerously inclin’d
To pant for more than peace.--Rich volumes yield
Their soul-endowing wealth.--Beyond e’en these
Shall consciousness of filial duty gild
The gloomy hours, when Winter’s turbid seas
Roar round the rocks; when the dark tempest lours,
And mourn the winds round Ethic’s lonely towers.
SONNET LX.[90]
Why view’st thou, Edwy, with disdainful mien,
The little Naiad of the Downton wave,
High ’mid the rocks, where her clear waters lave
The circling, gloomy basin?--In such scene,
Silent, sequester’d, few demand, I ween,
That last perfection Phidian chissels gave.
Dimly the soft and musing form is seen
In the hush’d shelly, shadowy, lone concave.--
As sleeps her pure, tho’ darkling fountain there
I love to recollect her, stretch’d supine
Upon its mossy brink, with pendent hair,
As dripping o’er the flood.--Ah! well combine
Such gentle graces, modest, pensive, fair,
To aid the magic of her watry shrine.
SONNET LXI.
TO MR HENRY CARY,[91]
ON READING HIS SONNETS WRITTEN AT SIXTEEN.
Disciple of the bright Aonian Maid
In thy life’s blossom, a resistless spell
Amid the wild, wood, and irriguous dell,
O’er thymy hill, and thro’ illumined glade,
Led thee, for her thy votive wreaths to braid,
Where flaunts the musk-rose, and the azure bell
Nods o’er loquacious brook, or silent well.--
Thus woo’d her inspirations, their rapt aid
Liberal she gave; nor only thro’ thy strain
Breath’d their pure spirit, while her charms beguiled
The languid hours of sorrow, and of pain,
But when youth’s tide ran high, and tempting smiled
Circean pleasure, rescuing did she stand,
Broke the enchantress’ cup, and snapt her wand.
SONNET LXII.[92]
Dim grows the vital flame in his dear breast
From whom my life I drew;--and thrice has Spring
Bloom’d; and fierce Winter thrice, on darken’d wing,
Howl’d o’er the gray, waste fields, since he possess’d
Or strength of frame, or intellect.--Now bring
Nor morn, nor eve, his cheerful steps, that press’d
Thy pavement, Lichfield, in the spirit bless’d
Of social gladness. They have failed, and cling
Feebly to the fix’d chair, no more to rise
Elastic!--Ah! my heart forebodes that soon
The Full of Days shall sleep;--nor Spring’s soft sighs,
Nor Winter’s blast awaken him!--Begun
The twilight!--Night is long!--but o’er his eyes
Life-weary slumbers weigh the pale lids down!
SONNET LXIII.
TO COLEBROOKE DALE.
Thy Genius, Colebrooke, faithless to his charge,
Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams,
Form’d for the train that haunt poetic dreams,
Naiads, and nymphs,--now hears the toiling barge
And the swart Cyclops’ ever-clanging forge
Din in thy dells:--permits the dark-red gleams,
From umber’d fires on all thy hills, the beams,
Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large
Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils
Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe
Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy gales,
And stain thy glassy floods;--while o’er the globe
To spread thy stores metallic, this rude yell
Drowns the wild woodland song, and breaks the poet’s spell.
SONNET LXIV.
TO MR HENRY CARY,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS SONNETS.
Prais’d be the Poet, who the Sonnet’s claim,
Severest of the orders that belong
Distinct and separate to the Delphic song,
Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name
Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame,
From him derived, who shunn’d the city throng,
And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among,
Lonely Valclusa!--and that heir of fame,
Our greater MILTON, hath, by many a lay
Form’d on that arduous model, fully shown
That English verse may happily display
Those strict energic measures, which alone
Deserve the name of Sonnet, and convey
A grandeur, grace and spirit, all their own.
SONNET LXV.
TO THE SAME.
MARCELLUS, since the ardours of my strain
To thy young eyes and kindling fancy, gleam
With somewhat of the vivid hues, that stream
From Poesy’s bright orb, each envious stain
Shed by dull critics, venal, vex’d and vain,
Seems recompens’d at full;--and so would seem
Did not maturer sons of Phœbus deem
My verse Aonian.--Thou, in time, shalt gain,
Like them, amid the letter’d world, that sway,
Which makes encomium fame;--so thou adorn,
Extend, refine and dignify thy lay,
And indolence, and syren pleasure scorn;
Then, at high noon, thy Genius shall display
The splendours promised in its shining morn.
SONNET LXVI.
Nobly to scorn thy gilded veil to wear,
Soft Simulation!--wisely to abstain
From fostering Envy’s asps;--to dash the bane
Far from our hearts, which Hate, with frown severe,
Extends for those who wrong us;--to revere
With soul, or grateful, or resign’d, the train
Of mercies, and of trials, is to gain
A quiet conscience, best of blessings here!--
Calm conscience is a land-encircled bay,
On whose smooth surface tempests never blow;
Which shall the reflex of our life display
Unstain’d by crime, tho’ gloom’d with transient woe;
While the bright hopes of Heaven’s eternal day
Upon the fair and silent waters glow.
SONNET LXVII.
ON DOCTOR JOHNSON’S UNJUST CRITICISMS
IN HIS LIVES OF THE POETS.[93]
Could aweful JOHNSON want poetic ear,
Fancy, or judgment?--no! his splendid strain,
In prose, or rhyme, confutes that plea.--The pain
Which writh’d o’er GARRICK’S fortunes, shows us clear
Whence all his spleen to Genius.--Ill to bear
A friend’s renown, that to his own must reign,
Compared, a meteor’s evanescent train,
To Jupiter’s fix’d orb, proves that each sneer,
Subtle and fatal to poetic sense,
Did from insidious Envy meanly flow,
Illumed with dazzling hues of eloquence,
And sophist-wit, that labour to o’er-throw
Th’ awards of Ages, and new laws dispense
That lift the Mean, and lay the Mighty low.
SONNET LXVIII.
ON THE
POSTHUMOUS FAME OF DOCTOR JOHNSON.
Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow
JOHNSON’S high claims!--yet boasting that his fires
Were of unclouded lustre, Truth retires
Blushing, and Justice knits her solemn brow;
The eyes of Gratitude withdraw the glow
His moral strain inspired.--Their zeal requires
That thou should’st better guard the sacred lyres,
Sources of thy bright fame, than to bestow
Perfection’s wreath on him, whose ruthless hand,
Goaded by jealous rage, the laurels tore,
That Justice, Truth, and Gratitude demand
Should deck those lyres till time shall be no more.--
A radiant course did JOHNSON’S glory run,
But large the spots that darken’d on its sun.
SONNET LXIX.
TO
A YOUNG LADY,
PURPOSING TO MARRY A MAN OF IMMORAL CHARACTER IN THE HOPE OF HIS
REFORMATION.
Time, and thy charms, thou fanciest will redeem
Yon aweless libertine from rooted vice.
Misleading thought! has he not paid the price,
His taste for virtue?--Ah, the sensual stream
Has flow’d too long.--What charms can so entice,
What frequent guilt so pall, as not to shame
The rash belief, presumptuous and unwise,
That crimes habitual will forsake the frame?--
Thus, on the river’s bank, in fabled lore,
The rustic stands; sees the stream swiftly go,
And thinks he soon shall find the gulph below
A channel dry, which he may safe pass o’er.--
Vain hope!--it flows--and flows--and yet will flow,
Volume decreaseless, to the Final Hour.
SONNET LXX.
TO A YOUNG LADY IN AFFLICTION,
WHO FANCIED SHE SHOULD NEVER MORE BE HAPPY.
Yes, thou shalt smile again!--Time always heals
In youth, the wounds of sorrow.--O! survey
Yon now subsided deep, thro’ night a prey
To warring winds, and to their furious peals
Surging tumultuous!--yet, as in dismay,
The settling billows tremble.--Morning steals
Grey on the rocks;--and soon, to pour the day
From the streak’d east, the radiant orb unveils
In all his pride of light.--Thus shall the glow
Of beauty, health, and hope, by soft degrees
Spread o’er thy breast; disperse these storms of woe;
Wake, with sweet pleasure’s sense, the wish to please,
Till from those eyes the wonted lustres flow,
Bright as the sun on calm’d and crystal seas.
SONNET LXXI.
TO THE POPPY.
While Summer roses all their glory yield
To crown the votary of love and joy,
Misfortune’s victim hails, with many a sigh,
Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field,
Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield
Thy flaccid vest, that as the gale blows high,
Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head.--
So stands in the long grass a love-craz’d maid,
Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind
Her garish ribbons, smear’d with dust and rain;
But brain-sick visions cheat her tortured mind,
And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,
Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,
Thou flimsy, shewy, melancholy Weed.
SONNET LXXII.
WRITTEN IN THE RAINY SUMMER OF 1789.
Ah, hapless June! circles yon lunar sphere
Yet the dim Halo? whose cold powers ordain
Long o’er these vales should sweep, in misty train,
The pale continuous showers, that sullying smear
Thy radiant lilies, towering on the plain;
Bend low, with rivel’d leaves of canker’d stain,
Thy drench’d and heavy rose--Yet pledg’d and dear
Fair Hope still holds the promise of the year;
Suspends her anchor on the silver horn
Of the next wexing orb, tho’, June, thy day,
Robb’d of its golden eve, and rosy morn,
And gloomy as the Winter’s rigid sway,
Leads sunless, lingering, disappointing hours
Thro’ the song-silent glades and dropping bowers.
SONNET LXXIII.
TRANSLATION.
He who a tender long-lov’d wife survives,
Sees himself sunder’d from the only mind
Whose hopes, and fears, and interests, were combin’d,
And blended with his own.--No more she lives!
No more, alas! her death-numb’d ear receives
His thoughts, that trace the past, or anxious wind
The future’s darkling maze!--His wish refined,
The wish to please, exists no more, that gives
The will its energy, the nerves their tone!--
He feels the texture of his quiet torn,
And stopt the settled course that action drew;
Life stands suspended--motionless--till thrown
By outward causes, into channels new;--
But, in the dread suspense, how sinks the soul forlorn!
SONNET LXXIV.
In sultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,[94]
Supinely stretch’d beneath the poplar shade,
Lured by his form, a fair Italian maid
Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey
The slumbering charms, that all her soul betray.
Then, as coy fears th’ admiring gaze upbraid,
Starts;--and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray’d,
Slides in his half-clos’d hand;--and speeds away.--
“Ye eyes, ye human stars!--if, thus conceal’d
“By sleep’s soft veil, ye agitate my heart,
“Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal’d
“Your rays had shone!”--Bright nymph, thy strains impart
Hopes, that impel the graceful bard to rove,
Seeking thro’ Tuscan vales his visionary love.
SONNET LXXV.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
He found her not:--yet much the Poet found,
To swell Imagination’s golden store,
On Arno’s bank, and on that bloomy shore,
Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound,
Where Rome’s forlorn Campania stretches round
Her ruin’d towers and temples;--classic lore
Breathing sublimer spirit from the power
Of local consciousness.--Thrice happy wound,
Given by his sleeping graces, as the fair
“Hung over them enamour’d,” the desire
Thy fond result inspired, that wing’d him there,
Where breath’d each Roman and each Tuscan lyre,
Might haply fan the emulative flame,
That rose o’er DANTE’S song, and rival’d MARO’S fame.
SONNET LXXVI.
THE CRITICS OF DR JOHNSON’S SCHOOL.[95]
Lo! modern Critics emulously dare
Ape the great despot; throw in pompous tone
And massy words their true no-meaning down!
But while their envious eyes on Genius glare,
While axioms false assiduously they square
In arrogant antithesis, a frown
Lours on the brow of Justice, to disown
The kindred malice with its mimic air.
Spirit of Common Sense! must we endure
The incrustation hard without the gem?
Find in th’ Anana’s rind the wilding sour,
The oak’s rough knots on every osier’s stem?
The dark contortions of the Sybil bear,
Whose inspirations never meet our ear?
SONNET LXXVII.
O! hast thou seen a vernal morning bright
Gem every bank and trembling leaf with dews,
Tinging the green fields with her amber hues,
Changing the leaden streams to lines of light?
Then seen dull clouds, that shed untimely night,
Roll envious on, and every ray suffuse,
Till the chill’d scenes their early beauty lose,
And faint, and colourless, no more invite
The glistening gaze of joy?--’Twas emblem just
Of my youth’s sun, on which deep shadows fell,
Spread from the Pall of Friends; and Grief’s loud gust
Resistless, oft would wasted tears compel:
Yet let me hope, that on my darken’d days
Science, and pious Trust, may shed pervading rays.
SONNET LXXVIII.
SOPHIA tempts me to her social walls,
That ’mid the vast Metropolis arise,
Where splendour dazzles, and each pleasure vies
In soft allurement; and each science calls
To philosophic domes, harmonious halls,
And storied galleries. With duteous sighs,[96]
Filial and kind, and with averted eyes,
I meet the gay temptation, as it falls
From a seducing pen.--Here--here I stay,
Fix’d by Affection’s power; nor entertain
One latent wish, that might persuade to stray
From my aged nurseling, in his life’s dim wane;
But, like the needle, by the magnet’s sway,
My constant trembling residence maintain.
SONNET LXXIX.
While unsuspecting trust in all that wears
Virtue’s bright semblance stimulates my heart
To find its dearest pleasures in the part
Taken in other’s joys; yielding to theirs
Its own desires, each latent wish that bears
The selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art
Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart,
Where Simulation’s studied smile ensnares!
Scorn that exterior varnish for the mind,
Which, while it polishes the manners, veils
In showy clouds the soul.--E’en thus we find
Glass, o’er whose surface clear the pencil steals,
Grown less transparent, tho’ with colours gay,
Sheds but the darken’d and ambiguous ray.
SONNET LXXX.
As lightens the brown hill to vivid green
When juvenescent April’s showery sun
Looks on its side, with golden glance, at noon;
So on the gloom of life’s now faded scene
Shines the dear image of those days serene,
From Memory’s consecrated treasures won;
The days that rose, ere youth, and years were flown,
Soft as the morn of May;--and well I ween
If they had clouds, in Time’s alembic clear
They vanish’d all, and their gay vision glows
In brightness unobscur’d; and now they wear
A more than pristine sunniness, which throws
Those mild reflected lights that soften care,
Loss of lov’d friends, and all the train of woes.
SONNET LXXXI.
ON A LOCK OF MISS SARAH SEWARD’S HAIR,
WHO DIED IN HER TWENTIETH YEAR.
My Angel Sister, tho’ thy lovely form
Perish’d in youth’s gay morning, yet is mine
This precious ringlet!--still the soft hairs shine,
Still glow the nut-brown tints, all bright and warm
With sunny gleam!--Alas! each kindred charm
Vanish’d long since; deep in the silent shrine
Wither’d to shapeless dust!--and of their grace
Memory alone retains the faithful trace.--
Dear Lock, had thy sweet owner liv’d, ere now
Time on her brow had faded thee!--My care
Screen’d from the sun and dew thy golden glow;
And thus her early beauty dost thou wear,
Thou all of that fair frame my love could save
From the resistless ravage of the grave!
SONNET LXXXII.
From a riv’d tree, that stands beside the grave
Of the self-slaughter’d, to the misty moon
Calls the complaining owl in night’s pale noon;
And from a hut, far on the hill to rave
Is heard the angry Ban-Dog. With loud wave
Yon rous’d and turbid river surges down,
Swoln with the mountain-rains, and dimly shown
Appals our sense.--Yet see! from yonder cave,
Her shelter in the recent, stormy showers,
With anxious brow, a fond expecting maid
Steals towards the flood!--Alas!--for now appears
Her lover’s vacant boat!--the broken oars
Roll down the tide!--What images invade!
Aghast she stands, the statue of her fears!
SONNET LXXXIII.
ON
CATANIA AND SYRACUSE
SWALLOWED UP BY AN EARTHQUAKE.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF FILACAJA.
Here, from laborious Art, proud Towns, ye rose!
Here, in an instant, sunk!--nor aught remains
Of all ye were!--on the wide, lonely plains
Not e’en a stone, that might these words disclose,
“Here stood Catania;”--or whose surface shows
That this was Syracuse:--but louring reigns
A trackless Desolation.--Dim domains!
Pale, mournful strand! how oft, with anxious throes,
Seek I sad relics, which no spot supplies!--
A Silence--a fix’d Horror sears my soul.--
Inexplicable doom of human crimes,
What art thou?--Ye o’erwhelmed cities, rise!
That your terrific skeletons may scowl
Portentous warning to succeeding times!
SONNET LXXXIV.
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
November, dragging on his sunless day,
Lours, cold and sullen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay.--
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil’d,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil’d;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain,
Faded, like my lost youth, that no bright Spring renews.
SONNET LXXXV.
TO MARCH.
March, tho’ the hours of promise with bright ray
May gild thy noons, yet, on wild pinion borne,
Loud winds more often rudely wake thy morn,
And harshly hymn thy early-closing day.
Still the chill’d earth wears, with her tresses shorn,
Her bleak, grey garb:--yet not for this we mourn,
Nor, as in Winter’s more enduring sway,
With festal viands, and associates gay,
Arm ’gainst the skies;--nor shun the piercing gale;
But, with blue cheeks, and with disorder’d hair,
Meet its rough breath;--and peep for primrose pale,
Or lurking violet, under hedges bare;
And thro’ long evenings, from our Lares claim
The thrift of stinted grate, and sullen flame.
SONNET LXXXVI.
TO THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY.[97]
Pride of Ierne’s sea-encircled bound,
Rival of all Britannia’s Naiads boast,
Magnificent Killarney!--from thy coast
Tho’ mountains rise with noblest woods embrown’d;
Tho’ ten-voiced echoes send the cannon’s sound
In thunders bursting the vast rocks around,
Till startled wonder and delight exhaust
In countless repercussion--isles embost
Upon thy liquid glass; their bloomy veil
Sorbus and arbutus;--yet not for thee
So keenly wakes our local ecstacy,
As o’er the narrow, barren, silent dale,
Where deeply sleeps, rude circling rocks among,
The love-devoted fount enamour’d PETRARCH sung.
SONNET LXXXVII.
TO A YOUNG LADY,
ADDRESSED BY A GENTLEMAN, CELEBRATED FOR HIS POETICAL TALENTS.
Round Cleon’s brow the Delphic laurels twine,
And lo! the laurel decks AMANDA’S breast!
Charm’d shall he mark its glossy branches shine
On that contrasting snow; shall see express’d
Love’s better omens, in the green hues dress’d
Of this selected foliage.--Nymph, ’tis thine
The warning story on its leaves to find,
Proud DAPHNE’S fate, imprison’d in its rind,
And with its umbrage veil’d; great Phœbus’ power
Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil
His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore
Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil.--
Thus warn’d, fair maid, APOLLO’S ire to shun,
Soon may his spray’s and Votary’s lot be one.
SONNET LXXXVIII.
[The three following Sonnets are written in the character of
Werter; the sentiments and images chiefly, but not entirely, taken
from one of his letters.]
THE PROSPECT A FLOODED VALE.
Up this bleak hill, in wintry night’s dread hour,
With mind congenial to the scene, I come!
To see my Valley in the lunar gloom,
To see it whelm’d.--Amid the cloudy lour
Gleams the cold moon;--and shows the ruthless power
Of yon swoln floods, that white with turbid foam
Roll o’er the fields;--and billowy as they roam,
Against the bushes beat!--A vale no more,
A troubled sea, toss’d by the furious wind!--
Alas! the wild and angry waves efface
Pathway, and hedge, and bank, and stile!--I find
But one wide waste of waters!--In controul
Thus dire, to tides of misery and disgrace
Love opes the flood-gates of my struggling soul.
SONNET LXXXIX.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.