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

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET XXX.

TO THE RIVER ARUN

BE the proud Thames of trade the busy mart!
    Arun! to thee will other praise belong;
Dear to the lover's and the mourner's heart,
    And ever sacred to the sons of song!

Thy banks romantic hopeless Love shall seek,
    Where o'er the rocks the mantling bindwith flaunts;
And Sorrow's drooping form and faded cheek
    Choose on thy willow'd shore her lonely haunts!

Banks! which inspired thy Otway's plaintive strain!
    Wilds!—whose lorn echoes learn'd the deeper tone
Of Collins' powerful shell! yet once again
    Another poet—Hayley is thine own!
Thy classic stream anew shall hear a lay,
Bright as its waves, and various as its way!