Volume 3 — SONNET XIV. JULY 1773.
Reading edition
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 life dear; Till we “the sensible of pain” would 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.