University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.—DESPONDENCY AND SELF-REPROACH.

[I. Oh friend, but thou art come to see me die]

Oh friend, but thou art come to see me die!
I parted from thee as I think in tears,
Alas! in tears that we should meet again:
Yet have they been my proper property,
And not for me to boast their needful pain,
Since 'twas my wilful, sad perversity,
That made them mine in my unreasoning years!
Yet if thou com'st for solace, give me thine,
For sympathy with sorrow still endears;
Grief seeks her happiest medicine in grief,
And, doom'd no more in silence to repine,
Finds in the kindred fortune best relief!
Ah! weeping thus, in such sweet company,
Methinks this sorrow is not wholly mine!

[II. Hadst thou come sooner! But 'tis not too late]

Hadst thou come sooner! But 'tis not too late
To soothe, though late to save! Thou canst not know
The profligate waste of hope, the scorn of fate
Which brings me now to this unmeasured woe!
The bitter birthright of unreckoning will,
The much too perfect freedom of my youth—
Oh privilege! to youth so perilous still,
Given by a fate as void of love as truth!
To these I owe this sorrow, and to these
The ruin that awaits my little bark,
Driven with too docile breezes on the seas
Till on the rocks, when skies grew sudden dark,
Foundering, she darted high, to sink as low
As hate might joy to see, as guilt and grief may go.

[III. Ah! thou didst use to steer her chartfully]

Ah! thou didst use to steer her chartfully,
But when we parted, wilful on the deep,
I launch'd, too bold the modest shore to keep,
Considering not the storm-conceiving sky,
The wind's caprice; that still a music gave,
As for an infant's slumber; nor the rocks,
That, fraudulent lurking, hush'd their wonted roar,
And buried their white heads along the shore,
Till, in their gripe, their keel-destroying shocks
Wreck'd me forever! Thou art late to save;
But thou wilt raise a beacon on the steep,
That other wrecks will happen here no more;
And if thou build it from this wreck of mine,
Even though it shame my grave, 'twill honor thine.