Volume 3 — SONNET LXXVIII.

Sophia tempts me to her social walls, That ’mid the vast Metropolis arise, Where splendour dazzles, and each pleasure vies In soft allurement; and each science calls To philosophic domes, harmonious halls, And storied galleries. With duteous sighs,[96] Filial and kind, and with averted eyes, I meet the gay temptation, as it falls From a seducing pen.—Here—here I stay, Fix’d by Affection’s power; nor entertain One latent wish, that might persuade to stray From my aged nurseling, in his life’s dim wane; But, like the needle, by the magnet’s sway, My constant trembling residence maintain.