Sonnet
Found by Mr. Alexander Ireland in
Leigh Hunt. the London ‘Examiner’ of December
24, 1815, and not anywhere included
in the poet’s collected works.
Were I to name, out of the times gone by,
The poets dearest to me, I should say,
Pulci for spirits, and a fine, free way;
Chaucer for manners, and close, silent eye;
Milton for classic taste, and harp strung high;
Spenser for luxury, and sweet, sylvan play;
Horace for chatting with, from day to day;
Shakspere for all, but most society.
But which take with me, could I take but one?
Shakspere, as long as I was unoppressed
With the world’s weight, making sad thoughts intenser;
But did I wish, out of the common sun,
To lay a wounded heart in leafy rest,
And dream of things far off and healing,
—Spenser.