Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

III. To the Moon

David Gray (1838–1861)

WITH what a calm serenity she smooths

Her way through cloudless jasper sown with stars!

Chaster than virtue, sweeter than the truths

Of maidenhood, in Spenser’s knightly wars.

For what is all Belphœbe’s golden hair,

The chastity of Britomart, the love

Of Florimel so faithful and so fair,

To thee, thou Wonder! And yet far above

Thy inoffensive beauty must I hold

Dear Una, sighing for the Red Cross Knight

Through all her losses, crosses manifold.

And when the lordly Lion fell in fight,

Who, who can paragon her fearful woe?

Not thou, not thou, O Moon! didst ever passion so.