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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Sonnet Written in a Blank Leaf of Dugdale’s ‘Monasticon’

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Thomas Warton (1728–1790)

Sonnet Written in a Blank Leaf of Dugdale’s ‘Monasticon’

DEEM not devoid of elegance the sage,

By Fancy’s genuine feelings unbeguiled,

Of painful pedantry the poring child,

Who turns, of these proud domes, th’ historic page,

Now sunk by Time, and Henry’s fiercer rage.

Think’st thou the warbling Muses never smiled

On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage

His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled,

Intent. While cloistered Piety displays

Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores

New manners, and the pomp of elder days,

Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores.

Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways

Of hoar Antiquity, but strown with flowers.