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Scorn Not The Sonnet
By William Wordsworth
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!
Extra Info:
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,
Lines 44 to 46: "unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years damp my intended wing Deprest."
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