SONNETS.

THE USES AND BEAUTIES of THE SONNET.

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 to

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 short solace there, as I have found.

UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE.

PRAISED be the art whose subtle power could stay

Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;

Nor would permit the thin smoke to

escape,

Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;

Which stopped that band of travellers on their way

Ere they were lost within the shady wood;