Sonnet CXLIII:
I know the days are heavy on thy hands,
Thy lonely pillow wet with many a tear,
Thy sad reflections waited on by fear,
Thy desperate future arid as the sands.
I know one whisper in thy wretched ear
Of this familiar voice would burst the bands
Of wintry fate, and strew the dreary lands
With all the bloom that opens with the year.
Ah! dread temptation, let me put thee by!
Lest early spring be compassed in the plot
of lurking frosts that round her ambushed lie.
Better the sigh, the tear, the midnight cry
Of secret grief, than that eternal blot
Which would bedim thee, if I ventured nigh.
