Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

I. To James Dodds and John Hunter

John Stuart Blackie (1809–1895)

SWEET pair of doves! The mystic notes that stirred

Dodona’s groves with oracles from Jove

Gave not a sweeter voice. Were I a bird,

I ’d sing with you of joy and peace and love,

And nests on earth more blest than halls in heaven;

But me a sterner power inspires: like car

With fiery breath and brazen snortings driven

O’er groaning rails and white smoke wreathing far,

My joy is action, and my music blasts

Of high-spurred energy that scorns delay:

Rock in your pleasure-boats! ’T is well. With masts

Sore-straining ’neath the gale I dash the spray:

Your souls in CRAIGCROOK’S warbling heaven shall dwell;

Mine drives from earth the harnessed Devil to hell!