The curse of Adam, the old curse of all, <br />Though I inherit in this feverish life <br />Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, <br />And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall, <br />Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall <br />I taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife. <br />Then what was Man's lost Paradise!—how rife <br />Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall! <br />Such as our own pure passion still might frame, <br />Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs, <br />If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came <br />To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs;— <br />But oh! as many and such tears are ours, <br />As only should be shed for guilt and shame!<br /><br />Thomas Hood<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-to-my-wife-2/
