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Sonnet I

By Robert Southey

Topics: classic

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain         Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?         For ever must your Nigers tainted flood     Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?     Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear         The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore         Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,     With laurels water'd by the widow's tear     Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!         And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep,         Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;     For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there     Breathes his gold-gender'd pestilence afar,     And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.

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"Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain..."

This evocative piece by Robert Southey, titled "Sonnet I", represents a masterful exploration of classic. The lines capture a profound emotional resonance... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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Author:Robert Southey

"Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain..." by Robert Southey

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Robert Southey

About Robert Southey

Robert Southey (1774–1843) was an English Romantic poet, historian, and biographer who served as Poet Laureate from 1813 to 1843. His poems include "The Battle of Blenheim" and "The Inchcape Rock," and he was a member of the Lake Poets alongside Wordsworth and Coleridge.

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"Enter this cavern Stranger! the ascent     Is long..."

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