ELIZABETH GOOCH

“Sonnet. Addressed to —”

Selecting from the sweetest flow’rs, the Bee
Roves, unrestrain’d, the perfum’d walks among;
I cull Parnassus’ giddy heights for thee,
Or sing thy praises in the love-sick song.

Sometimes, mayhap, in melancholy mood,                                                   5
Contemplative, the desert paths I range;
And watch the parting sun-beams o’er the wood,
The leafless branches, and autumnal change.

In my sad heart alone no change appears;
Of ev’ry thought thy image is the end;                                                      10
I wander through a wilderness of tears,
Bereft of thee, and ev’ry earthly friend.
Will then my heavy suff’rings never cease,
But lies in death my only road to peace?

NOTES:

2 Roves  “To wander, roam” (OED).

3 Parnassus “Mount Parnassus, regarded as the source of literary, esp. poetic, inspiration” (OED).

5 mayhap Perhaps.

12 Bereft “Forcibly deprived” (OED).

SOURCE: Poems on Various Subjects (London, 1793), p. 33. [Google Books] 

Edited by Halsey Williamson