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

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search

SONNET XIX.


TO MR. HAYLEY,

ON RECEIVING SOME ELEGANT LINES FROM HIM.


FOR me the Muse a simple band design'd
    Of 'idle' flowers that bloom the woods among,
Which, with the cypress and the willow join'd,
    A garland form'd as artless as my song.
And little dared I hope its transient hours
    So long would last; composed of buds so brief;
'Till Hayley's hand among the vagrant flowers
    Threw from his verdant crown a deathless leaf.
For high in Fame's bright fane has Judgment placed
    The laurel wreath Serena's poet won,
Which, woven with myrtles by the hands of Taste,
    The Muse decreed for this her favorite son.
And those immortal leaves his temples shade,
Whose fair, eternal verdure—shall not fade!