Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 2, The Second Edition/Sonnet LXXVI

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXVI.

TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD.

GO now, ingenuous Youth!—The trying hour
    Is come: The World demands that thou shouldst go
To active life: There titles, wealth, and power
    May all be purchas'd—Yet I joy to know
Thou wilt not pay their price. The base controul
    Of petty despots in their pedant reign
    Already hast thou felt;—and high disdain
Of Tyrants is imprinted on thy soul—
    Not, where mistaken Glory, in the field
Rears her red banner, be thou ever found:
    But, against proud Oppression raise the shield
Of Patriot daring—So shalt thou renown'd
    For the best virtues live; or that denied
    May'st die, as Hampden or as Sydney died!