Poem by Thomas Hood

Sonnet to My Wife

The curse of Adam, the old curse of all,
Though I inherit in this feverish life
Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,
And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall,
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall
I taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife.
Then what was Man's lost Paradise!—how rife
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!
Such as our own pure passion still might frame,
Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs,
If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs;—
But oh! as many and such tears are ours,
As only should be shed for guilt and shame! 

1. Written in Keats' “Endymion”
2. The Two Peacocks of Bedfont
3. Song (The stars are with the voyager)
4. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy
5. The Departure of Summer

Print

1767 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version