VII
VII [1]
For me would Fancy now her chaplet twine
Of Hope's bright blossoms, and Joy's fairy flowers,
As she was wont to do in gayer hours;
Ill would it suit this brow, where many a line
Declares the spring time of my life gone by,5
And summer far advanc'd; what now remain
Of waning years, should own staid wisdom's reign.
Shall my distemper'd heart still idly sigh
For those gay phantoms, chas'd by sober truth?
Those forms tumultuous which sick visions bring,10
That lightly flitting on the transient wing
Disturb'd the fever'd slumbers of my youth?
Ah no! my suffering soul at length restor'd,
Shall taste the calm repose, so oft in vain implor'd.
Notes
[1] EDITOR'S NOTE: "For me would Fancy now her chaplet twine " is printed as "Sonnet" in Psyche, with Other Poems without a date but is dated 1799 in NLI MS 49,155/1. The illustration depicts a chaplet or garland such as Tighe might have worn; in a letter dated July 1796 the Reverend Samuel Pierce writes to his wife about a visit with the Tighe family that describes how Tighe "entered the room, soon after I came to Rosanna, with a chaplet of roses about her head" (cited in William Howitt's 1847 Homes and Haunts of the British Poets). BACK
