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Scorn not the
Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its
just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his
heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to
Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did
Tasso sound;
Camoens soothed with it an exile's
grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid
the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary
brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser,
called from Faeryland
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!
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