Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2  contents   |   previous   |   next SONNET LXXVI. TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD. GO now, ingenuous Youth! — The trying hour          Is come: The World demands that thou shouldst go To active life: There titles, wealth and power          May all by purchas'd — Yet I joy to know Thou wilt not pay their price. The base controul [Note:] SONNET LXXVI. Line 5. The base controul Of petty despots in their pedant reign Already hast thou felt; — This was not addressed to my son, who suffered with many others in an event which will long be remembered by those parents who had sons at a certain public school, in 1793, but to another young man, not compelled as he was, in consequence of that dismission, to abandon the fairest prospects of his future life.          Of petty despots in their pedant reign          Already hast thou felt; — and high disdain Of Tyrants is imprinted on thy soul — Not, where mistaken Glory, in the field          Rears her red banner, be thou ever found; But, against proud Oppression raise the shield          Of Patriot daring — So shalt thou renown'd For the best virtues live; or that denied May'st die, as Hampden or as Sydney died!  contents   |   previous   |   next		HOME INTRODUCTION