Page:Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays The Second Edition.pdf/34

[  20    ] And scenes long past, by memory fondly nurs'd, When the Second reign'd, or  the First; Compar'd to which, degenerate and absurd Seems the gay world that moves round the Third. Nor thy soft influence will the train refuse,Who court in distant shades the modest Muse, Tho' in a form, more pure and more refin'd, Thy dulcet spirit for the letter'd mind. Not death itself thy empire can destroy;Towards thee, even then, we turn the languid eye; Still trust in thee to bid our memory bloom, And scatter roses round the silent tomb. SONNET,