This page has been validated.
214
ELIZABETH C. KINNEY.
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camoens soothed with it an exile’s grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Fairy-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!”
Camoens soothed with it an exile’s grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Fairy-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!”
But the Sonnet is not confined to the Old World:—certain also of our own poets have with this magic “key” unlocked the heart; with this “glow-worm lamp,” shed light into the enshrouded mind; with this “pipe,” awakened tones musical as the shepherd god sent through Arcadian vales; with this “myrtle leaf,” made green again the cypress-crowned brow; with this “trumpet,” sounded the victory of the spirit over human passions and earth-born hopes.
“And what shall we say more? Time would fail us to tell of” all that the Sonnet has effected—of all who have made it the mighty instrument for the soul’s unwritten music.
