On Reading Her Centenary of Sonnets

Dear are the forceful energies of Song, For they do swell the spring-tide of the heart With rosier currents, and impel along The life-blood freely:—O! they can impart Raptures ne'er dreamt of by the sordid throng Who barter human feeling at the mart Of pamper'd selfishness, and thus do wrong Imperial Nature of her prime desert.— SEWARD! thy strains, beyond the critic-praise Which may to arduous skill its meed assign, Can the pure sympathies of spirit raise To bright Imagination's throne divine; And proudly triumph, with a generous strife, O'er all the “flat realities of life.”