Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces :: :: University of Virginia Library

The foot of Time so soundless never pass'd
As when sweet fancy wove her magic thralls—
Go, mourner, to the Muses, haste thee, haste,
And bring thy gifts where Peter's shadow falls
To heal thee in his passing: call for aid
Of joy, that quenches being and it's gall—
Sad! that the consciousness of Life must fade
Before the bliss it yields be felt at all:
We cannot sit, inertly calm'd, to hear
The silence broken by the step of life;
We must have music while we languish here,
Loud music, to annul our spirit's strife,
To make the soul with pleasant fancies rife,
And soothe the stranger from another sphere!