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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS: PART 2: 1., by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: How soon - alas! Did man, created pure -
Last Line: Pronounces, ne'er abandons charity.
First Line: How soon - alas! Did man, created pure -
Last Line: Pronounces, ne'er abandons charity.
(TO THE CLOSE OF THE TROUBLES IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES I)
HOW soon -- alas! did Man, created pure --
By Angels guarded, deviate from the line
Prescribed to duty: -- woeful forfeiture He made by wilful
breach of law divine.
With like perverseness did the Church abjure
Obedience to her Lord, and haste to twine,
'Mid Heaven-born flowers that shall for aye endure,
Weeds on whose front the world had fixed her sign.
O Man, -- if with thy trials thus it fares,
If good can smooth the way to evil choice,
From all rash censure be the mind kept free;
He only judges right who weighs, compares,
And in the sternest sentence which his voice
Pronounces, ne'er abandons Charity.
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COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CASTLE, 1803 by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
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