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

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LXXX.

TO THE INVISIBLE MOON.

DARK and conceal'd art thou, soft Evening's Queen,
    And Melancholy's votaries that delight
To watch thee, gliding thro' the blue serene,
    Now vainly seek thee on the brow of night—
Mild Sorrow, such as Hope has not forsook,
    May love to muse beneath thy silent reign;
But I prefer from some steep rock to look
    On the obscure and fluctuating main,
What time the martial star with lurid glare,
    Portentous, gleams above the troubled deep;
Or the red comet shakes his blazing hair;
    Or on the fire-ting'd waves the lightnings leap;
While thy fair beams illume another sky,
And shine for beings less accurst than I.