 | Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems by the late Thomas Russell |  |
2
SONNET II.
Ah! what avails it with adventurous pace
To scale, fair Poesy, thy heights sublime?
Tho' many a flower adorn the fragrant clime,
Oft chilling storms with envious blast deface
Each opening bloom: meanwhile with lifted mace
High on the mountain's brow, in garb obscene,
Sits Want, a Spectre pale, whose threatening mien
Oft drives the Bard to quit th' unfinish'd race:
Yet nobler Some, undaunted at his frown,
Up the steep hill have trod the rugged way;
Such sung the Redcross Knight, the Trojan Town,
Brave Gama's toils, and Salem's bloody fray;
Such too, with harder fate, tho' like renown,
Great Ælla's Minstrel pour'd his deathless lay.
To scale, fair Poesy, thy heights sublime?
Tho' many a flower adorn the fragrant clime,
Oft chilling storms with envious blast deface
Each opening bloom: meanwhile with lifted mace
High on the mountain's brow, in garb obscene,
Sits Want, a Spectre pale, whose threatening mien
Oft drives the Bard to quit th' unfinish'd race:
Yet nobler Some, undaunted at his frown,
Up the steep hill have trod the rugged way;
Such sung the Redcross Knight, the Trojan Town,
Brave Gama's toils, and Salem's bloody fray;
Such too, with harder fate, tho' like renown,
Great Ælla's Minstrel pour'd his deathless lay.
| Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems by the late Thomas Russell | |