I find it strange that one as versed as you
In discontent, and having such small time
For poets, or the matter of their muse,
Would make it such an issue of the mind
To lose a book, no matter how it went;
Misplaced, or left behind, or even tossed
On this, the rubbish-heap of dreams long spent
Before the love that brought the book was lost.
For sonnets, after all, speak love to those
Who still may love, so what would you with these?
- Torment each page that it might ever close
On something you so carelessly dismiss?
I bid you, let this persecution cease…
I do not have your ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese!’

David Lewis Paget