Sonnet to Consumption

Gently, most gently, on thy victim’s head.

Consumption, lay thine hand!—let me decay

Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away,

And softly go to slumber with the dead.

And if ’tis true what holy men have said,

That strains angelic oft foretell the day

Of death to those good men who fall thy prey,

O let the aërial music round my bed,

Dissolving sad in dying symphony,

Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear;

That I may bid my weeping friends good-by Ere I depart upon my journey drear:

And, smiling faintly on the painful past,

Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.