"FROM THE DARK CHAMBERS OF DEJECTION FREED"
Composed 1814.—Published 1815
[Composed in Edinburgh, during my Scotch tour with Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister, Miss Hutchinson, in the year 1814. Poor Gillies never rose above that course of extravagance in which he was at that time living, and which soon reduced him to poverty and all its degrading shifts, mendicity being far from the worst. I grieve whenever I think of him, for he was far from being without genius, and had a generous heart, not always to be found in men given up to profusion. He was nephew of Lord Gillies, the Scotch judge, and also of the historian of Greece. He was cousin to Miss Margaret Gillies, who painted so many portraits with success in our house.—I.F.]
Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In 1815 the sonnet was headed To ——.—Ed.
From the dark chambers of dejection freed,
Spurning the unprofitable yoke of care,
Rise, Gillies, rise:[33] the gales of youth shall bear
Thy genius forward like a wingèd steed.
Though bold Bellerophon (so Jove decreed