Sonnet Xxiii. By The Same. To The North Star.

TO thy bright beams I turn my swimming eyes,
Fair, favourite planet, which in happier days
Saw my young hopes, ah, faithless hopes!–arise,
And on my passion shed propitious rays.
Now nightly wandering ‘mid the tempests drear
That howl the woods and rocky steeps among,
I love to see thy sudden light appear
Through the swift clouds–driven by the wind along:
Or in the turbid water, rude and dark,
O’er whose wild stream the gust of Winter raves,
Thy trembling light with pleasure still I mark,
Gleam in faint radiance on the foaming waves!
So o’er my soul short rays of reason fly,
Then fade:–and leave me to despair and die.