The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) / Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

SONNET

To T. Hood, Esq. written after reading his “Plea of the Midsummer Fairies.”

Delightful bard! what praises meet are thine,
More than my verse can sound to thee belong;
Well hast thou pleaded, with a tongue divine,
In this thy sweet and newly breathed song,
Where, like the stream, smooth numbers gliding throng;
Gather’d, methinks I see the elfin race,
With the Immortal standing them among,
Smiling benign with more than courtly grace;
Rescued I see them,—all their gambols trace,
With their fair queen Titania in her bower,
And all their avocations small embrace,
Pictur’d by thee with a Shakspearean power—
O when the time shall come thy soul must flee,
Then may some hidden spirit plead for thee.

Edward Moxon.

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For the Table Book.