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

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXIII.

TO A QUERULOUS ACQUAINTANCE.

THOU! whom Prosperity has always led
    O'er level paths, with moss and flow'rets strewn;
For whom she still prepares a downy bed
    With roses scatter'd, and to thorns unknown,
Wilt thou yet murmur at a mis-placed leaf?
    Think, ere thy irritable nerves repine,
    How many, born with feelings keen as thine,
Taste all the sad vicissitudes of grief;
How many steep in tears their scanty bread;
    Or, lost to reason, Sorrow's victims! rave:
How many know not where to lay their head;
    While some are driven by anguish to the grave!
Think; nor impatient at a feather's weight,
Mar the uncommon blessings of thy fate!