Sonnet CCXIV:
Like to an aged poet who reviews
An early volume, once his secret pride,
With a distaste that scarcely can abide
The olden lines which read like shameful news;
A thousand faults and weaknesses he rues,
That in their making, he remembers, cried
Impatiently for that which man denied,
The fame which seasoned judgment should refuse;
So I, when blushing memory returns
Unto mine eyes the record of our days,
Reread the volume to my own dispraise.
Ah! let me close the cover that inurns
The desperate past, and all its legends raze,
As something base, for which oblivion yearns.
