Sonnet XLIII
Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition
THE unhappy exile, whom his fates confineTo the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle,Cold, barren, desart, where no harvests smile,But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine;When, from some promontory's fearful brow,Sun after sun he hopeless sees declineIn the broad shipless sea—perhaps may knowSuch heartless pain, such blank despair as mine!And, if a flattering cloud appears to showThe fancied semblance of a distant sail,Then melts away——anew his spirits fail,While the lost hope but aggravates his woe!Ah! so for me delusive Fancy toils,Then, from contrasted truth—my feeble soul recoils.