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

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXIX.

TO THE GODDESS OF BOTANY.

OF Folly weary, shrinking from the view
    Of Violence and Fraud, allow'd to take
    All peace from humble life; I would forsake
Their haunts for ever, and, sweet Nymph! with you
    Find shelter; where my tired, and tear-swoln eyes
Among your silent shades of soothing hue,
    Your "bells and florets of unnumber'd dyes"
    Might rest—And learn the bright varieties
That from your lovely hands are fed with dew;
    And every veined leaf, that trembling sighs
In mead or woodland; or in wilds remote,
    Or lurk with mosses in the humid caves,
Mantle the cliffs, on dimpling rivers float,
    Or stream from coral rocks beneath the Ocean waves.