PREFATORY SONNET.

Nuns 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 to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:
Pleas'd if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find short solace there, as I have found.

PART THE FIRST.

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS.

DEDICATION.

To

Happy the feeling from the bosom thrown

In perfect shape (whose beauty Time shall spare
Though a breath made it) like a bubble blown

For summer pastime into wanton air;

Happy the thought best likened to a stone

Of the sea-beach, when, polished with nice care,
Veins it discovers exquisite and rare,

Which for the loss of that moist gleam atone

That tempted first to gather it.

That here,

O chief of Friends! such feelings I present

To thy regard, with thoughts so fortunate,

Were a vain notion; but the hope is dear

That thou, if not with partial joy elate,

Wilt smile upon this gift with more than mild content!

1827.

1.

How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks

The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood!
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 to a bonny Lass, who plays her 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

Or
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.