SONNET.
[If when with thee I feel and speak]
If when with thee I feel and speak
What not with others I have felt and spoken.
It is not for the beauty of thy cheek,
Nor for thy forehead fair,
Nor for the dark locks quietly sleeping there,
Nor for thy words of kindness, Friendship's token;
But rather, that I trace
Passion and purity in that meaning face;
And that thy brow is stamped with feeling
Such as mocks the tongue's revealing,
And that I see in thy young soul
A breathing part of that celestial Whole,
And that thou art a Poet, and the son
Of an Immortal one!
Cambridge, December. 1821.
