Sonnet XLII.

"[1]From Possibility's dim chaos sprung,         High o'er its gloom the Arostatic Power         Arose! - Exulting Nations hail'd the hour,"

"Time, and thy charms, thou fanciest will redeem         Yon aweless Libertine from rooted vice.         Misleading thought! has he not paid the"

"All is not right with him, who ill sustains         Retirement's silent hours. - Himself he flies,         Perchance from that insipid equipois"

"O partial MEMORY! Years, that fled too fast,         From thee in more than pristine beauty rise,         Forgotten all the transient tears and"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"