Sonnet CLXXI:
I trust my love for thee may expiate
The many passions I have felt or feigned
For the deluded idols that have reigned
Over my fancy in precarious state.
Frail was their tenure, brief their kingdom’s date,
The subject restless and the record stained
With woe and falsehood, till their glory waned,
And crown and scepter were an irksome weight.
’Tis vain to sigh for that extinguished line,
Which love’s rebellion hastened to its close,
Or make a sorrow of departed woes.
They were as stars that for the darkness shine,
Waiting, foredoomed, upon their own decline,
As dawn grew daylight, and thy sun arose.
