“Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars”

By Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
from Sonnets, Second Series

XVII

Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars
Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun,
Than in this year of variance thou hast done
For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars
Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse
The swift sun hastens, and the night debars
The day, but to bring in the day more bright;
The flowers renew their odorous fellowships;
The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips,
True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars
Roll and return from circle to ellipse;
The day is dull and soft, the eave-trough drips;
And yet I know the splendor of the light
Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!


Source: American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (The Library of America, 1993)