Charlotte Smith

Here you will find thePoemSonnet LXXXII. To The Shade Of Burnsof poet Charlotte Smith

Sonnet LXXXII. To The Shade Of Burns

MUTE is thy wild harp, now, O bard sublime! Who, amid Scotia's mountain solitude, Great Nature taught to 'build the lofty rhyme,' And even beneath the daily pressure, rude, Of labouring poverty, thy generous blood, Fired with the love of freedom--Not subdued Wert thou by thy low fortune: but a time Like this we live in, when the abject chime Of echoing parasite is best approved, Was not for thee--Indignantly is fled Thy noble spirit; and no longer moved By all the ills o'er which thine heart has bled, Associate, worthy of the illustrious dead, Enjoys with them 'the liberty it loved.'