Charlotte Turner Smith
          
Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2
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SONNET LXXX.

TO THE INVISIBLE MOON.

[Note:] SONNET LXXX.
TO THE INVISIBLE MOON.
I know not whether this is correctly expressed — I suspect that it is not — What I mean, however, will surely be understood — I address the Moon when not visible at night in our hemisphere.
"The sun to me is dark,
"And silent as the Moon
"When she deserts the night,
"Hid in her secret interlunar cave."
Milton, Samps. Agon.

DARK and conceal'd art thou, soft Evening's Queen,
         And Melancholy's votaires 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.
 
 
 
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