Sonnet
By Capel Lofft, Esq
This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this volume, and was occasioned by several little Quatorzains, misnomered Sonnets, which he published in the Monthly Mirror. He begs leave to return his thanks to the much respected writer, for the permission so politely granted to insert it here, and for the good opinion he has been pleased to express of his productions.
Ye whose aspirings court the muse of lays,
“Severest of those orders which belong,
Distinct and separate, to Delphic song,”
Why shun the sonnet’s undulating maze?
And why its name, boast of Petrarchian days,
Assume, its rules disown’d? whom from the throng
The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys
Of its full harmony:—they fear to wrong
The sonnet, by adorning with a name
Of that distinguish’d import, lays, though sweet,
Yet not in magic texture taught to meet
Of that so varied and peculiar frame.
O think! to vindicate its genuine praise
Those it beseems, whose lyre a favouring impulse sways.