6.
“Thy statutes have been my songs: in the house of my pilgrimage.”
And if of English bards the chief and best,
Shakespeare and Spenser, such their sonnets wove,
On the loose intricacies of creature love;
Like each to each as speckled eggs in nest,
Or azure pearls upon their fair one's breast,
Or plumes on neck of the impassioned dove,
Or bubbles which on Ocean's surface move,
Thrown from his labourings deep and dark unrest,
As with the breeze they sport, or catch the gleam:—
Then may I not unblamed, from thoughts that teem
Mid flowers of Paradise, a nobler theme
Construct in semblance of the honeyed cells;
And, as the self-same measure falls and swells,
Ring on from morn to eve my music bells?
