Charlotte Turner Smith
          
Elegiac sonnets. Volume 1 of 2
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SONNET XXV.

BY THE SAME.
JUST BEFORE HIS DEATH.
WHY should I wish to hold in this low sphere

[Note:] SONNET XXV.
Line 1.
'May my death remove every obstacle to your happiness. Be at peace, I intreat you be at peace.'
Sorrow of Werter. Volume Second.


         'A frail and feverish being?' wherefore try
Poorly from day to day to linger here,
         Against the powerful hand of destiny?
By those who know the force of hopeless care,
         On worn heart I sure shall be forgiven,
If to elude dark guilt, and dire despair,
         I go uncall'd to mercy and to Heaven!
Oh thou! to save whose peace I now depart,
         Will thy soft mind, thy poor lost friend deplore,
When worms shall feed on this devoted heart,

[Note:] SONNET XXV.
Line 11.
When worms shall feed on this devoted heart,
Where even thy image shall be found no more.
From a line in Rousseau's Eloisa.


         Where even thy image shall be found no more?
Yet may thy pity mingle not with pain,
For then thy hapless lover dies in vain!
 
 
 
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