[BNP/E3, 49A1 – 32]

Were I to die even upon this day

What would I leave in this | great world and vain| †?

That looking once upon it men might say,

Here is a thing to lessen our deep pain?

I would leave nothing. Men have had no gain

From the brief while that I on earth did stay.

I was a mouth[1] to eat and to retain

Things which for others had had use and way.

I have come here to suffer and to die

To seek for things the world containeth not

And having {…}

Like worms and beasts to {…} and to rot

And fill some poet’s mind that wanders by

With a most usual of a painful thought.[2]

7. Within the sea I was a drop of rain

8. A useless wanderer on life’s common way.

[32r]

Sonnets.

 
[1] mouth /thing\
[2] With a most usual of a /and most\ painful /face-shouldering but a use-painless\ thought.