Poem by Anna Seward

Sonnet 97. Thou silent Door of our eternal sleep

    TO A COFFIN-LID.

Thou silent Door of our eternal sleep,
    Sickness, and pain, debility, and woes,
    All the dire train of ills Existence knows,
    Thou shuttest out FOR EVER!—Why then weep
This fix'd tranquillity,—so long!—so deep!
    In a dear Father's clay-cold Form?—where rose
    No energy, enlivening Health bestows,
    Thro' many a tedious year, that us'd to creep
In languid deprivation; while the flame
    Of intellect, resplendent once confess'd,
    Dark, and more dark, each passing day became.
Now that angelic lights the Soul invest,
    Calm let me yield to thee a joyless Frame,
    Thou silent Door of everlasting Rest.

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 38. If he whose bosom with no transport swells
5. Sonnet 36. Now on hills, rocks, and streams, and vales, and plains

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