SONNET I.

When Life's realities the Soul perceives

Vain, dull, perchance corrosive, if she glows

With rising energy, and open throws

The golden gates of Genius, she achieves

His fairy clime delighted, and receives

In those gay paths, deck'd with the thornless rose,

Blest compensation.— Lo! with alter'd brows

Lours the false World, and the fine Spirit grieves;

No more young Hope tints with her light and bloom

The darkening Scene.— Then to ourselves we say,

Come, bright IMAGINATION, come! relume

Thy orient lamp; with recompensing ray

Shine on the Mind, and pierce its gathering gloom

With all the fires of intellectual Day!