Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

II. To the Setting Moon

Richard Bingham Davis (1771–1799)

MUSING in meditation’s charméd dream,

Joyless I see thy placid radiance fade,

Hid by the dusky hills, whose humid shade

Quenches thy lustre floating in the stream.

How great the contrast from thy cheerful light!

How deep, how silent is the sudden gloom!

Still, as the sullen vapors of the night,

Dark, as the shade that wraps the haunted tomb!

’T is thus thy phantoms, Hope, delusive sweep

Along the shades of life, while fancy dwells

Fond on the prospect,—sudden burst the spells,

And leave the disappointed wretch to weep;

While the fond memory of past delight

Deepens the gloom of desperation’s night!