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The Poetical Works of Anna Seward

With Extracts from her Literary Correspondence. Edited by Walter Scott ... In Three Volumes
Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

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VOL. I.
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[subsection]
  
LOVE ELEGIES AND EPISTLES.
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SONGS.
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VOL. II.
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VOL. III.

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316

SONNET.

[Gay trips my nymph along the green retreat]

Gay trips my nymph along the green retreat,
With frolic airy steps; and where they go
Fresh florets rise in twice their wonted glow;
Yellower the sun-beams o'er the meadows fleet,
Or fancies fond possess me. Her light feet,
Glancing along, no other traces show;
They bend not the young grass, that springs to meet
The falling arch of April's showery bow;
Nor bruise the emmet on her busy way;
And if the downy blow-ball flies its stalk,
So would it fly beneath the gentlest play
Of western winds; when, with his tuneful talk,
Amid new leaves, each songster of the grove
Cheers on her mossy nest his listening love.
 

This Sonnet is in the style of our elder poets, with whom the hyperbole was a favourite poetic figure.

Ben Jonson's name for the seedvessels of the Dandelion.

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