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

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXXIV.

TO THE MUSE.

WILT thou forsake me who in life's bright May
    Lent warmer lustre to the radiant morn;
    And even o'er Summer scenes by tempests torn,
Shed with illusive light the dewy ray
Of pensive pleasure? Wilt thou, while the day
    Of saddening Autumn closes, as I mourn
In languid, hopeless sorrow, far away
    Bend thy soft step, and never more return?—
Crush'd to the earth, by bitterest anguish prest,
    From my faint eyes thy graceful form recedes;
    Thou canst not heal an heart like mine that bleeds;
But, when in quiet earth that heart shall rest,
    Haply may'st thou one sorrowing vigil keep,
    Where Pity and Remembrance bend and weep!