Sonnet: O Poverty! Though From Thy Haggard Eye
by William Lisle Bowles

English poet and critic. His first work, Fourteen Sonnets (1789), was a considerable influence on the early romantics, especially Coleridge, and revived the sonnet form. Other works include The Spirit of Discovery (1804) and The Grave of the Last Saxon (1822). His edition of Alexander Pope's works (1806) brought about a pamphlet war between him and Byron for his claim that Pope's attention to "artificial" life rather than nature placed him at the leadership of only the second rank of poets.

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Sonnet: O Poverty! Though From Thy Haggard Eye
by William Lisle Bowles

O, Poverty! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mien, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow that Hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
I love thy solitary haunts to seek.
For Pity, reckless of her own distress;
And Patience, in her pall of wretchedness,
That turns to the bleak storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, that never told her wrong;
And meek Content, whose griefs no more rebel;
And Genius, warbling sweet her saddest song;
And Sorrow, listening to a lost friend's knell,
Long banished from the world's insulting throng;
With thee, and thy unfriended offspring, dwell.

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Sonnet: O Poverty! Though From Thy Haggard Eye by William Lisle Bowles