Commentary and a note on the text will follow. Note that this is a reading text, not a critical edition.
Sonnet XIX |
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| Farewell, false Friend! — our scenes of kindness close! | ||
| To cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell! | ||
| To sweet consolings, that can grief expel, | ||
| And every joy soft sympathy bestows! | ||
| 5 | For alter’d looks, where truth no longer glows, | |
| Thou hast prepared my heart; — and it was well | ||
| To bid thy pen th’ unlook’d-for story tell, | ||
| Falsehood avow’d, that shame, nor sorrow knows. — | ||
| O! when we meet, — (to meet we’re destin’d, try | ||
| 10 | To avoid it as thou may’st) on either brow, | |
| Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye, | ||
| Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how | ||
| We once were to each other; — nor one sigh | ||
| Flatter with weak regret a broken vow! |