University of Virginia Library


296

SONNET XVI.

To Isaac Hawkins Browne, Esq;
Hawkins, whose lips the Muses have imbued
With all the sweetness of th' Aonian spring;
Whom emuling I deftly learn'd to sing,
And smoother tune my numbers rough and rude;
Truce with the jangling Law's eternal feud,
It's subtile quirks, and captious cavilling;
Unlike the Muse's gentle whispering,
Which leads the Heaven-taught Soul to Fit and Good:
Thee more beseems in Eloquence' fair field,
The Senate, war with Faction's chiefs to wage,
Bare the Mock-Patriot's ill dissembled crime,
Nor let fair Truth to feigned seeming yield;
With thy sweet Lyre to catch the list'ning Age,
And sing thy Trimnell's charms in deathless rhyme.