Sonnet LXXXIV
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
November, dragging on his sunless day,
Lours, cold and fallen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay.—
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil’d,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil’d;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain,
Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.