WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The Sonnet

��XT 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.

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CCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd, ^ Mindless of its just honours ; with this key

Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ;

With it Camoens sooth'd an exile's grief;

The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp,

It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd 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 !

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