Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition/Sonnet XVIII

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SONNET XVIII.


TO THE EARL OF EGREMONT.


WYNDHAM! 'tis not thy blood, tho' pure it runs
    Through a long line of glorious ancestry,
Percys and Seymours, Britain's boasted sons,
    Who trust the honors of their race to thee:

'Tis not thy splendid domes, where Science loves
    To touch the canvas, and the bust to raise;
Thy rich domains, fair fields, and spreading groves;
    'Tis not all these the Muse delights to praise:

In birth, and wealth, and honours, great thou art!
    But nobler in thy independent mind;
And in that liberal hand and feeling heart
    Given thee by Heaven—a blessing to mankind!
    Unworthy oft may titled fortune be;
A soul like thine——is true Nobility!