University of Virginia Library


137

SONNET.

To the Reverend Mr. J. G.

To GOD, it is, my Friend, and you I owe,
What I have been the twenty Years that last,
In various Changes o're my Head have past,
And forty more, if Heav'n shall on me throw;
How good so e're I by that time may grow,
(For Great I wish not, and who makes less haste?)
To your account shall be at th' Audit plac'd,
Who Virtues Path by few trod, made me know,
And timely did my wandring Youth reclaim,
By Grave Advice, tho not so reckoned then,
(The more my Folly) how e're it has been since;
But when the Spirit Divine to blow begins,
What Boys we scorn'd, we follow close grown Men,
And the kind Warner have in greatest Fame.