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Sixty-Five Sonnets

With Prefatory Remarks on the Accordance of the Sonnet with the Powers of the English Language: Also, A Few Miscellaneous Poems [by Thomas Doubleday]

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30

IV.

Sophronia, when, with lavish harp, I fling
Thy beauty's praises to the spreading gale,
Say, does my tongue, unmindful, ever fail
The loftier graces of thy soul to sing?
My love with fondness to thy form will cling,
Yet, reverend, bends to bid each virtue hail,
And, though he prize the soft, luxurious vale,
Can path the heights of bright imagining.
He is a wanton yet adventurous boy,
With earthly wishes and a climbing mind,
Tracking rich fancy's land with feet of fire;
But thou would'st have him soar to seek with joy
An atmosphere so subtle, cold, refin'd,
That he must breathe in pain, and soon expire.