's sun, on which deep shadows fell,
Spread from the PALL OF FRIENDS; and Grief's loud gust
Resistless, oft wou'd wasted tears compel:
Yet let me hope, that on my darken'd days
Science, and pious Trust, may shed pervading rays.
SONNET LXXVIII.
Sophia tempts me to her social walls,
That 'mid the vast Metropolis arise,
Where Splendor dazzles, and each Pleasure vies
In soft allurement; and each Science calls
To philosophic Domes, harmonious Halls,
And [1]storied Galleries. With duteous sighs,
Filial and kind, and with averted eyes,
I meet the gay temptation, as it falls
From a seducing pen.--Here--here I stay,
Fix'd by Affection's power; nor entertain
One latent wish, that might persuade to stray
From my ag'd Nurseling, in his life's dim wane;
But, like the needle, by the magnet's sway,
My constant, trembling residence maintain.
1: "And storied windows richly dight."--IL PENSEROSO.
SONNET LXXIX.
While unsuspecting trust in all that wears
Virtue's bright semblance, stimulates my heart
To find its dearest pleasures in the part
Taken in other's joys; yielding to theirs
Its own desires, each latent wish that bears
The selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art
Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart,
Where Simulation's studied smile ensnares!
Scorn that exterior varnish for the Mind,
Which, while it polishes the _manners_, veils
In showy clouds the _soul_.--E'en thus we find
Glass, o'er whose surface clear the pencil steals,
Grown less transparent, tho' with colours gay,
Sheds but the darken'd and ambiguous ray.
SONNET LXXX.
As lightens the brown Hill to vivid green
When juvenescent April's showery Sun
Looks on its side, with golden glance, at Noon;
So on the gloom of Life's now faded scene
Shines the dear image of those days serene,
From Memory's consecrated treasures won;
The days that rose, ere youth, and years were flown,
Soft as the morn of May;--and well I ween
If they had clouds, in Time's alembic clear
They vanish'd all, and their gay vision glows
In brightness unobscur'd; and now they wear
A more than pristine sunniness, which throws
Those mild reflected lights that soften care,
Loss of lov'd Friends, and all the train of Woes.
SONNET LXXXI.
ON A LOCK OF MISS SARAH SEWARD'S HAIR
WHO DIED IN HER T
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