 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
95
INFLUENCES.
Judge not the sensitive: if thou hast blamed,Think how a thousand influences tell,
With strong enchantment acting like a spell,
Upon that spirit all too finely framed:
Antagonisms, and slights, and vulgar things,
And all whatever else should make ashamed
Of mean or vain, from these as nettle-stings
Shrinks back within itself the feeling mind;
What thou hast counted cold fastidious pride
Is to warm graces tenderly allied,
Indignant wrath with holy pain combined;
And spirit-nerves alike with nerves of sense,
To some brute natures worthily denied,
In others thrill with energies intense.
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |