Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition/Sonnet XLVI

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET XLVI.

WRITTEN AT PENSHURST, IN AUTUMN 1788.

YE towers sublime! deserted now and drear!
    Ye woods! deep sighing to the hollow blast,
The musing wanderer loves to linger near,
    While History points to all your glories past:
And startling from their haunts the timid deer,
    To trace the walks obscured by matted fern,
    Which Waller's soothing lyre were wont to hear,
    But where now clamours the discordant hern!
The spoiling hand of Time may overturn
    These lofty battlements, and quite deface
The fading canvass whence we love to learn
    Sydney's keen look, and Sacharissa's grace;
But fame and beauty still defy decay,
Saved by the historic page——the poet's tender lay!