Poem by Anna Seward

Sonnet 1. When Life's realities the Soul perceives

When Life's realities the Soul perceives
    Vain, dull, perchance corrosive, if she glows
    With rising energy, and open throws
    The golden gates of Genius, she achieves
His fairy clime delighted, and receives
    In those gay paths, deck'd with the thornless rose,
    Blest compensation.—Lo! with alter'd brows
    Lours the false World, and the fine Spirit grieves;
No more young Hope tints with her light and bloom
    The darkening Scene.—Then to ourselves we say,
    Come, bright Imagination, come! relume
Thy orient lamp; with recompensing ray
    Shine on the Mind, and pierce its gathering gloom
    With all the fires of intellectual Day!

1. Sonnet 78. Sophia tempts me to her social walls
2. Sonnet 89. Yon late but gleaming Moon, in hoary light
3. Sonnet 17. Ah! why have I indulg'd my dazzled sight
4. Sonnet 36. Now on hills, rocks, and streams, and vales, and plains
5. Sonnet 68. Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow

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