Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 2, The Second Edition/Sonnet LXV

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXV.

TO DR. PARRY OF BATH, WITH SOME BOTANIC
DRAWINGS WHICH HAD BEEN MADE SOME YEARS.

IN happier hours, ere yet so keenly blew
    Adversity's cold blight, and bitter storms,
    Luxuriant Summer's evanescent forms,
And Spring's soft blooms with pencil light I drew:
But as the lovely family of flowers
    Shrink from the bleakness of the Northern blast,
    So fail from present care and sorrow past
The slight botanic pencil's mimic powers—
Nor will kind Fancy even by Memory's aid,
    Her visionary garlands now entwine;
Yet while the wreaths of Hope and Pleasure fade,
    Still is one flower of deathless blossom mine,
That dares the lapse of Time, and Tempest rude,
The unfading Amaranth of Gratitude.