 | New Poems by George Crabbe |  |
First comes a Sonnet—Ah! I fear
I cannot be a Sonneteer;
I cannot let a single thought
In just so many lines be wrought,
All to the Subject fairly due,
I cannot draw, as men a wire,
What the strict Sonnet-rules require,
In measure and in meaning, too.
Pass then the Sonnet—next we see
A most pathetic Elegy;
On Celia's Bullfinch; how it died
And Celia then like Lesbia cried,
When her dear bird, that used to sip,
The nectar from her balmy lip,
By Fate demanded, left the lass,
Th' irrevocable Way to pass,
In the dim World of Ghosts to go,
Where now he skips among the Shades
Of Birds in melancholy Glades,
And chirps faint notes of Woe—
But this is grief, and I have not a sigh,
Not one soft line for Birds who pine and die,
When Men and Maids are dying every day;
But here's a song, and that would seem a thing,
Within our power—it is not hard to sing,
For Poets all a love of Song betray.
I cannot be a Sonneteer;
I cannot let a single thought
In just so many lines be wrought,
All to the Subject fairly due,
I cannot draw, as men a wire,
What the strict Sonnet-rules require,
In measure and in meaning, too.
Pass then the Sonnet—next we see
A most pathetic Elegy;
On Celia's Bullfinch; how it died
And Celia then like Lesbia cried,
When her dear bird, that used to sip,
The nectar from her balmy lip,
By Fate demanded, left the lass,
Th' irrevocable Way to pass,
In the dim World of Ghosts to go,
Where now he skips among the Shades
Of Birds in melancholy Glades,
And chirps faint notes of Woe—
But this is grief, and I have not a sigh,
Not one soft line for Birds who pine and die,
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But here's a song, and that would seem a thing,
Within our power—it is not hard to sing,
For Poets all a love of Song betray.
| New Poems by George Crabbe | |