Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 2, The Second Edition/Sonnet LXXXVI

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXXVI.

WRITTEN NEAR A PORT ON A DARK EVENING.

HUGE vapours brood above the clifted shore,
    Night on the Ocean settles, dark and mute,
Save where is heard the repercussive roar
    Of drowsy billows, on the rugged foot
Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone
    Of seamen in the anchor'd bark that tell
The watch reliev'd; or one deep voice alone,
    Singing the hour, and bidding "Strike the bell,"
All is black shadow, but the lucid line
    Mark'd by the light surf on the level sand,
Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine
    Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land
Mislead the Pilgrim——Such the dubious ray
That wavering Reason lends, in life's long darkling way.