Sonnet I: When Life's Realities The Soul Perceives

INGRATITUDE,- how deadly is thy smart, Proceeding from the Form we fondly love! How light, compar'd, all other sorrows prove! Thou shed'st a night of woe, from whence depart The gentle beams of patience, that the heart 'Mid lesser ills illume.- Thy Victims rove Unquiet as the Ghost that haunts the grove Where MURDER spilt the life-blood.- O! thy dart Kills more than life, e'en all that makes it dear; Till we the 'sensible of pain' wou'd change For Phrenzy, that defies the bitter tear, Or wish, in kindred callousness, to range Where moon-ey'd IDIOCY, with fallen lip, Drags the loose knee, and intermitting step.