Poem by James Russell Lowell

Sonnet

  If some small savor creep into my rhyme
  Of the old poets, if some words I use,
  Neglected long, which have the lusty thews
  Of that gold-haired and earnest-hearted time,
  Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime
  Have given our tongue its starry eminence,--
  It is not pride, God knows, but reverence
  Which hath grown in me since my childhood's prime;
  Wherein I feel that my poor lyre is strung
  With soul-strings like to theirs, and that I have
  No right to muse their holy graves among,
  If I can be a custom-fettered slave,
  And, in mine own true spirit, am not brave
  To speak what rusheth upward to my tongue.

1. Fancies about a Rosebud, Pressed in an Old Copy of Spenser
2. Fourth of July Ode
3. My Friend, Adown Life's Valley, Hand in Hand
4. Verse Cannot Say How Beautiful Thou Art
5. Sayest Thou, Most Beautiful, That Thou Wilt Wear

Wallace Stevens Sonnet ("Lo, even as I passed beside the booth")

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