(>0 SONNKTS. 



SONNET 515. 



O, what superfluous cares and griefs we nurse ! 



Envy and jealousy, and false esteem 



Of good delusive ; and vain light desires; 



And hopes on feeble pinions flitting far; 

 And love's fond flattery, and resentment's curse; 



And idleness, which ease we falsely deem ; 



And melancholy's gloom, and pleasure's fires; 



And fears presageful, that our footsteps bar I 

 All are the visions of a morbid mind 



And heart unsound, to vapoury airs a slave ! 



If we our courage to the conquest bind, 



The fiercest of these fancies we may brave : 



Tis but to wave the sword, and still the breast ; 

 And we contented and at peace may rest I 



SONNET 325. 



No wrong ends with itself: the wounded deer 

 Is driven from the herd ; who patient bears 

 An ill, becomes a mark :- a well-aim'd blow 

 A thousand vultures on the victim draws : 



Where Fraud has fix'd upon her prey, appear 

 Locusts unnumber'd, whose devourment spares 

 No relic of the blood, but drains, e'en low 

 To the last drop, the life-spring. Thus with claws 

 Of iron sharpness feeds the cormorant 



Upon the red-gored heart. The distant bird 

 We must behold, while hovering fierce and gaunt 

 Up in the clouded air. His wing is heard 

 Flapping with awful indistinctness round ; 

 And we should gaze and tremble at the sound. 



