by Coleridge · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A reproachful love sonnet to a mistress who deserts the poet to seek a wealthier husband overseas, threatening that the deceitful sea may avenge his grief.
Connections
Archetypes: Femme Fatale Motifs: Sea, Money and Gold Themes & Concepts: Unrequited Frustrated Love, Deception Forms & Genres: Sonnet
Testo integrale / Full text
WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN THE EAST INDIES
The dubious light sad glimmers o’er the sky:
‘Tis silence all. By lonely anguish torn,
With wandering feet to gloomy groves I fly,
And wakeful Love still tracks my course forlorn.
And will you, cruel Julia! will you go? 5
And trust you to the Ocean’s dark dismay?
Shall the wide wat’ry world between us flow?
And winds unpitying snatch my Hopes away?
Thus could you sport with my too easy heart?
Yet tremble, lest not unaveng’d I grieve! 10
The winds may learn your own delusive art,
And faithless Ocean smile — but to deceive!
1792.