 | The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey |  |
Hark! as I hang reflective o'er my task,
The pen fresh nibbed and full, held idly yet;
What sound comes clicking through the half-closed door,
Distinct, monotonous?—'Tis even so;
Years past, the pledge, self-plighted, was redeemed;
There hangs with its companionable voice
The cuckoo clock in this mine house.—Ay, mine;
But left unto me desolate. Such end
Crowns oft Ambition's most successful aim—
Success than disappointment more defeating;—
Passionate longing grasps the ripened fruit
And finds it marred, a canker at the core:
What shall I dare desire of earthly good
The seeming greatest; what in prayer implore
Or deprecate, of that my secret soul
In fondness and in weakness covets most
Or deepest dreads, but with the crowning clause,
The sanctifying—“Lord! Thy will be done?”
The pen fresh nibbed and full, held idly yet;
What sound comes clicking through the half-closed door,
Distinct, monotonous?—'Tis even so;
Years past, the pledge, self-plighted, was redeemed;
92
The cuckoo clock in this mine house.—Ay, mine;
But left unto me desolate. Such end
Crowns oft Ambition's most successful aim—
Success than disappointment more defeating;—
Passionate longing grasps the ripened fruit
And finds it marred, a canker at the core:
What shall I dare desire of earthly good
The seeming greatest; what in prayer implore
Or deprecate, of that my secret soul
In fondness and in weakness covets most
Or deepest dreads, but with the crowning clause,
The sanctifying—“Lord! Thy will be done?”
| The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey | |