And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.
--_Sonnet_ 107.
As of higher worth, so doubtless still more characteristic of poetic
genius does the imagery become, when it moulds and colours itself to
the circumstances, passion, or character, present and foremost in the
mind. For unrivalled instances of this excellence the reader's own
memory will refer him to the _Lear, Othello,_ in short, to which not
of the _'great, ever living, dead man's'_ dramatic works? _Inopem me
copia fecit_. How true it is to nature, he has himself finely expressed
in the instance of love in
_Sonnet_ 98:
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April drest in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were, but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
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