Sonnet Cxlv:

CXLV 'Tis hard, 'tis hard, but it must be endured; Nor through our suffering can I see the end To which our drifting fortunes slowly tend With nothing fixed, and no result assured. Could I but say these trials have secured A dawning hope; these shadowing lines shall bend As a dark background round our lives, and lend Love's beacon light, when we are safely moored! But who shall find this future in the stars? Or task my lyre to sound that prophet tone Which fate with hasty scorn will not disown? Alas, alas! my own foreboding mars Our narrow prospect seen through woven bars, Doubled in woe, because 'tis borne alone.