IX.
Oh lovely gifts, by me too fatal found!
Lovely and dear indeed whilst Heaven was kind;
In mine immortal memory ye are joined,
And sworn with her to give my dying wound;
Who would have said, sweet seasons past, when crowned
With the ecstatic hope your emblems lent,
That one day you would have to represent
Despair so dark, affliction so profound?
Since in an hour ye made unpitying theft
Of those Elysian dreams, do not deny
To take as well the sorrow you have left;
Else, can I but suspect ye raised so high
My youthful joys, to wish that I should die
Midst mournful memories of the bliss bereft!