Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2  contents   |   previous   |   next SONNET LXIII. THE GOSSAMER. O'ER faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze, [Note:] SONNET LXIII. Line 1. O'er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze. The web, charged with innumerable globules of bright dew, that is frequently on heaths and commons in autumnal morning, can hardly have escaped the observation of any lover of nature — The slender web of the field spider is again alluded to in Sonnet lxxvii.          The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread; Waving in every sighing air that stirs,          As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread: A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew          Spangle the texture of the fairy loom, As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew,          Had wept departed Summer's transient bloom: But the wind rises, and the turf receives          The glittering web: — So, evanescent, fade Bright views that Youth with sanguine heart, believes:          So vanish schemes of bliss, by Fancy made; Which, fragile as the fleeting dreams of morn, Leave but the wither'd heath, and barren thorn!  contents   |   previous   |   next		HOME INTRODUCTION