Sonnet XVI To Reflection
Hence, busy torturer, wherefore should mine eye
Revert again to many a sorrow past?
Hence, busy torturer, to the happy fly,
Those who have never seen the sun o’ercast
By one dark cloud, thy retrospective beam,
Serene and soft, may on their bosoms gleam,
As the last splendour of the summer sky.
Let them look back on pleasure, ere they know
To mourn its absence; let them contemplate
The thorny windings of our mortal state,
Ere unexpected bursts the cloud of woe;
Stream not on me thy torch’s baneful glow,
Like the sepulchral lamp’s funereal gloom,
In darkness glimmering to disclose a tomb.
BION.