To The Autumnal Moon

Mild Splendour of the various-vested Night! Mother of wildly-working visions! hail! I watch thy gliding, while with watery light Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil; And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud Behind the gather'd blackness lost on high; And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud Thy placid lightning o'er the awaken'd sky.

Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair! Now dimly peering on the wistful sight; Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despair: But soon emerging in her radiant might She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

1788.