-Now bring
Nor Morn, nor Eve, his cheerful steps, that press'd
Thy pavement, LICHFIELD, in the spirit bless'd
Of social gladness. They have fail'd, and cling
Feebly to the fix'd chair, no more to rise
Elastic!--Ah! my heart forebodes that soon
The FULL OF DAYS shall sleep;--nor Spring's soft sighs,
Nor Winter's blast awaken him!--Begun
The twilight!--Night is long!--but o'er his eyes
Life-weary slumbers weigh the pale lids down!

1: When this Sonnet was written, the Subject of it had languished
three years beneath repeated paralytic strokes, which had greatly
enfeebled his limbs, and impaired his understanding. Contrary to all
expectation he survived three more years, subject, through their
progress, to the same frequent and dreadful attacks, though in their
intervals he was serene and apparently free from pain or sickness.

SONNET LXIII.

TO COLEBROOKE DALE.

Thy GENIUS, Colebrooke, faithless to his charge,
Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams,
Form'd for the Train that haunt poetic dreams,
Naiads, and Nymphs,--now hears the toiling Barge
And the swart Cyclops ever-clanging forge
Din in thy dells;--permits the dark-red gleams,
From umber'd fires on all thy hills, the beams,
Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large
Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils
Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe
Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy gales,
And stain thy glassy floods;--while o'er the globe
To spread thy stores metallic, this rude yell
Drowns the wild woodland song, and breaks the Poet's spell.

SONNET LXIV.

TO MR. HENRY CARY,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS SONNETS.

Prais'd be the Poet, who the Sonnet's claim,
Severest of the orders that belong
Distinct and separate to the Delphic Song,
Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name
Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame,
From him deriv'd, who shunn'd the City Throng,
And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among,
Lonely Valclusa!--and that Heir of Fame,
Our greater MILTON, hath, by many a lay
Form'd on that arduous model, fully shown
That English Verse may happily display
Those strict energic measures, which alone
Deserve the name of SONNET, and convey
A grandeur, grace and spirit, all their own.

SONNET LXV.

TO THE SAME.

Marcellus, since the ardors of my strain
To thy you