Oh! can'st thou bear to see this faded frame, <br />Deform'd and mangled by the rocky deep? <br />Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep, <br />My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame? <br />Soon o'er this heart, now warm with passion's flame, <br />The howling winds and foamy waves shall sweep; <br />Those eyes be ever clos'd in death's cold sleep, <br />And all of Sappho perish, but her name! <br />Yet, if the Fates suspend their barb'rous ire, <br />If days less mournful, Heav'n designs for me! <br />If rocks grow kind, and winds and waves conspire, <br />To bear me softly on the swelling sea; <br />To Phoebus only will I tune my Lyre, <br />"What suits with Sappho, Phoebus suits with thee!"<br /><br />Mary Darby Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-xlii-oh-canst-thou-bear/
