THE USE OF A POET. A THOUSAND thoughts were stirring in my mind, And taught the laws that regulate the blast, YOUNG LOVE. THE nimble fancy of all-beauteous Greece, That would not terrify his mother's sparrows, Of old idolatry, and youthful time! Fit emanation of a happy clime, Where but to live, to breathe, to be, was sweet, And Love, tho' even then a little cheat, Dream'd not his craft would e'er be call'd a crime. DEATH-BED REFLECTIONS OF MICHELANGELO. Nor that Not that I rear'd a temple for mankind, To meet and pray in, borne by every wind— NOTES. DEDICATORY SONNET, line 3. Thou, in thy night-watch o'er my cradled slumbers, Alluding to the poem called "Frost at Midnight," by S. T. Coleridge. The reference is especially to the following lines: But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze, By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Himself in all, and all things in himself. As far as regards the habitats of my childhood, these lines, written at Nether Stowey, were almost prophetic. But poets are not prophets. SONNET I. To a Friend. This sonnet, and the two following, my earliest attempts at that form of versification, were addressed to R. S. Jameson, Esq., on occasion of meeting him in London after a separation of some years. He was the favourite companion of my boyhood, the active friend |