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Poem by Anna Seward


Sonnet 14. Ingratitude, how deadly is thy smart


Ingratitude, how deadly is thy smart
    Proceeding from the Form we fondly love!
    How light, compared, 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” wou'd 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.


July 1773

Anna Seward


Anna Seward's other poems:
  1. Sonnet 53. The knell of Whitehead tolls!—his cares are past
  2. Sonnet 65. Marcellus, since the ardors of my strain
  3. Sonnet 56. What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes
  4. Sonnet 98. Since my griev'd mind some energy regains
  5. Sonnet 38. If he whose bosom with no transport swells


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