Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2  contents   |   previous   |   next SONNET LXXXII. TO THE SHADE OF BURNS. [Note:] SONNET LXXXII. TO THE SHADE OF BURNS. Whoever has tasted the charm of original genius so evident in the composition of this genuine Poet, A Poet "of nature's own creation," cannot surely fail to lament his unhappy life, (latterly passed, as I have understood, in an employment to which such a mind as his must have been averse,) nor his premature death. For one, herself made the object of subscription, is it proper to add, that whoever has thus been delighted with the wild notes of the Scottish bard, must have a melancholy pleasure in relieving by their benevolence, the unfortunate family he has left? MUTE is thy wild harp, now, O Bard sublime!          Who, amid Scotia's mountain solitude, Great Nature taught to "build the lofty rhyme,"          And even beneath the daily pressure, rude,          Of labouring Poverty, thy generous blood,          Fired with the love of freedom — Not subdued Wert thou by thy low fortune: But a time Like this we live in, when the abject chime Of echoing Parasite is best approved,          Was not for thee — Indignantly is fled Thy noble Spirit; and no longer moved          By all the ills o'er which thine heart has bled,          Associate, worthy of the illustrious dead, Enjoys with them "the Liberty it loved." [Note:] SONNET LXXXII. Line 14. "Enjoys the liberty it loved —" Pope.  contents   |   previous   |   next		HOME INTRODUCTION