Charlotte Turner Smith
          
Elegiac sonnets. Volume 1 of 2
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SONNET LVIII.

THE GLOW-WORM.
WHEN, on some balmy-breathing night of Spring
         The happy child, to whom the world is new,
Pursues the evening moth, of mealy wing,
         Or from the heath-bell beats the sparking dew;
He sees, before his inexperienc'd eyes,
         The brilliant Glow-worm, like a meteor, shine
On the turf bank; amaz'd and pleas'd he cries
         "Star of the dewy grass! I make thee mine!"

[Note:] SONNET LVIII.
Line 8.
"Star of the earth."
Dr. Darwin.


Then, ere he sleep, collects the moisten'd flower,"

[Note:] SONNET LVIII.
Line 9.
"The moisten'd blade "
Wolcot's beautiful Ode to the Glow-worm.


         And bids soft leaves his glittering prize enfold,
And dreams that fairy lamps illume his bower:
         Yet with the morning, shudders to behold
His lucid treasure, rayless as the dust;
So turn the World's bright joys, to cold and blank disgust.
 
 
 
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