Sonnet XCVII To a Coffin-Lid
Thou silent Door of our eternal sleep,
Sickness, and pain, debility, and woes,
All the dire train of ills Existence knows,
Thou shuttest out FOR EVER!—Why then weep
This fix’d tranquillity,—so long!—so deep!
In a dear Father’s clay-cold Form?—where rose
No energy, enlivening Health bestows,
Thro’ many a tedious year, that us’d to creep
In languid deprivation; while the flame
Of intellect, resplendent once confess’d,
Dark, and more dark, each passing day became.
Now that angelic lights the Soul invest,
Calm let me yield to thee a joyless Frame,
Thou silent Door of everlasting Rest.
Lichfield, March 1790.