SONNET V. On a FAMILY-PICTURE.

SONNET V.

On a FAMILY-PICTURE.

WHEN pensive on that portraiture I gaze, Where my four brothers round about me stand, And four fair sisters smile with graces bland, The goodly monument of happier days;

And think, how soon insatiate death, who preys On all, has cropp'd the rest with ruthless hand, While only I survive of all that band, Which one chaste bed did to my father raise;

It seems, that like a column left alone, The tott'ring remnant of some splendid fane, 'Scap'd from the fury of the barb'rous Gaul, And wasting Time, which has the rest o'erthrown, Amidst our house's ruins I remain, Single, unprop'd, and nodding to my fall.