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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET: 1 by ROBERT SOUTHEY

Poet Analysis

First Line: GO, VALENTINE, AND TELL THAT LOVELY MAID
Last Line: AND HEAVE THE SIGH OF MEMORY AND OF LOVE.
Subject(s): DESIRE; GRIEF; LONGING; LOVE; MEMORY; MESSENGERS; SONNET (AS LITERARY FORM); SORROW; SADNESS;

Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid
Whom fancy still will portray to my sight,
How here I linger in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say, that from every joy of life remote
At evening's closing hour I quit the throng,
Listening in solitude the ring-dove's note,
Who pours like me her solitary song.
Say, that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh;
Say, that of all her charms I love to speak,
In fancy feel the magic of her eye,
In fancy view the smile illume her cheek,
Court the lone hour when silence stills the grove,
And heave the sigh of memory and of love.



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