***

SONNET.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823.  There is a transcript amongst the Ollier manuscripts, and another in the Harvard manuscript book.]

Ye hasten to the grave!  What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear? 
O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess
All that pale Expectation feigneth fair! 5
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,
And all that never yet was known would know—­
Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,
With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path, 10
Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,
A refuge in the cavern of gray death? 
O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you
Hope to inherit in the grave below?

NOTE: 
1 grave Ollier manuscript;
   dead Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.
5 pale Expectation Ollier manuscript;
   anticipation Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.
7 must Harvard manuscript, 1823; mayst 1824; mayest editions 1839.
8 all that Harvard manuscript, 1823; that which editions 1824, 1839.
   would Harvard manuscript, 1823; wouldst editions 1839.

***

LINES TO A REVIEWER.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823.  These lines, and the “Sonnet” immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the “Literary Pocket-Book".]

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me? 
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side:  in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate. 
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate! 
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10
In winter noon.  Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

NOTE: 
3 where editions 1824, 1839; when 1823.

***

FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE.

[Published by Edward Dowden, “Correspondence of Robert Southey and Caroline Bowles”, 1880.]

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air 5
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror