English poem
Sonnet LXXVI (GO now, ingenuous Youth!—The trying hour…)
by Charlotte Smith (1749–1806)
GO now, ingenuous Youth!—The trying hour Is come: The World demands that thou shouldst go To active life: There titles, wealth, and power May all be purchas'd—Yet I joy to know Thou wilt not pay their price. The base controul Of petty despots in their pedant reign Already hast thou felt;—and high disdain Of Tyrants is imprinted on thy soul— Not, where mistaken Glory, in the field Rears her red banner, be thou ever found: But, against proud Oppression raise the shield Of Patriot daring—So shalt thou renown'd For the best virtues live; or that denied May'st die, as Hampden or as Sydney died!
More by Charlotte Smith
- Sonnet LXXIII (THOU! whom Prosperity has always led…)
- Sonnet LXXIV ("SLEEP, that knits up the ravell'd…)
- Sonnet LXXIX (OF Folly weary, shrinking from the…)
- Sonnet LXXV (WHERE the wild woods and pathless…)
- Sonnet LXXVII (SMALL, viewless aeronaut, that by the…)
- Sonnet LXXVIII (WAN Heralds of the Sun and…)
- Sonnet LXXX (DARK and conceal'd art thou, soft…)
- Sonnet LXXXI (HE may be envied, who with…)