533. i
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room,
And hermits are contented with their cells,
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
534. ii
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens sooth'd an exile's grief; The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!
