 | Poems (1872) |  |
273
TO VISCOUNT DONCASTER,
WITH SIX HOLY SONNETS.
See, Sir, how as the sun's hot masculine flameBegets strange creatures on Nile's durty slime,
In me your fatherly yet lusty ryme
(For these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
But though the ingendring force from whence they came
Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
Seven to be born at once, I send as yet
But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your Judgment, which the same degree
Doth with her sister, your Invention, hold,
As fire, these drossie rhymes to purifie;
Or as elixar, to change them to gold.
You are that alchymist, which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.
| Poems (1872) | |