Sketches

Chapter 30: SONNET.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A youthful collection of lyrical sketches and short poems composed during the author’s college years, blending poetic retellings of scriptural narratives with reflective prose on boyhood, idleness, dreams, dawn and twilight, and moments of private feeling. Many pieces adopt a devotional or contemplative tone, concentrating on nature imagery, familial affection, grief, and moral deliberation. Occasional sonnets, fugitive poems, a college address, and journal fragments intersperse the sketches, producing a varied sequence that foregrounds vivid description, sentimental mood, and earnest introspection rather than sustained narrative development.

SONNET.

I have been gazing on thee, Genevieve,

And musing, in my love, if thou must die;

And I have thought it were not well to grieve

At thy most delicate frame and lustrous eye;

For as a harp is broken, when the finger

That knew its cunning hath forgot to play,

Thou wouldst not, for that frail confinement, linger,

When it was time for thee to pass away;

And therefore am I glad, that when my heart

To thy enquiring tenderness is hushed,

And thine endearments from mine eyes depart,

’Twill be enough for thee that life hath gushed,

Gently to loose the silver cord, and die,

And with me in my place of slumber lie.