William Wordsworth

Scorn Not The Sonnet

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Camöens soothed 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 Faery-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! NOTES Form: sonnet abbaaccadedeff Petrarch: the earliest of the great Italian poets (1304-1374) ; his sonnets deal with his unrequited passion for Laura. Tasso: Italian poet (1544-95), author of La Gerusalemme Liberata. Camö ;ens: Portuguese poet banished to a settlement in China in 1556. Dante: greatest of Italian poets (1265-1321). His Divine Comedy gives a vision of the other world ; his sonnets present the lighter aspect of his poetry. damp: mist ; referring to his blindness, and carrying associations with the sonnet on that subject. Or perhaps, depression of spirit\; cf. Paradise Lost, IX, 44-46: "unless an age too late, or cold/Climate, or years damp my intended wing/Deprest. "