Charlotte Turner Smith

Sonnet 15. From Petrarch (WHERE the green leaves exclude the summer beam)

WHERE the green leaves exclude the summer beam,
And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,
And where, with liquid lapse, the lucid stream
Across the fretted rock is heard to flow,
Pensive I lay: When she whom Earth concease,
As if still living, to my eyes appears,
And pitying Heaven her angel form reveals,
To say—`Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears;
`Ah! Why sad lover! thus before your time,
`In grief and sadness should your life decay,
`And like a blighted flow'r, your manly prime
`In vain and hopeless sorrow, fade away?
`Ah! Yield not thus to culpable despair,
`But raise thine eyes to Heav'n—and think I wait thee there.'