Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition/Sonnet IV

by Charlotte Smith

Plate 1Sonnet 4

Corbould del.Milton sculpt

Published Jan^y. 1. 1789 by T. Cadell, Strand
Queen of the Silver Bow, &c.

SONNET IV.

TO THE MOON.

QUEEN of the silver bow!—by thy pale beam,
    Alone and pensive, I delight to stray,
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream,
    Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way.
And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light
    Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast;
And oft I think——fair planet of the night,
    That in thy orb the wretched may have rest:
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go,
    Released by death——to thy benignant sphere;
And the sad children of Despair and Woe
    Forget, in thee, their cup of sorrow here.
Oh! that I soon may reach thy world serene,
Poor wearied pilgrim——in this toiling scene!