Poem by Mary Robinson

Sonnet to Evening

[Written under a tree in the woods of St. Amand, 
in Flanders.]


SWEET BALMY HOUR! ­dear to the pensive mind,
Oft have I watch’d thy dark and weeping shade,
Oft have I hail’d thee in the dewy glade,
And drop’d a tear of SYMPATHY refin’d. 

When humming bees, hid in their golden bow’rs,
Sip the pure nectar of MAY’S blushing rose,
Or faint with noon-day toils, their limbs repose,
In Baths of Essence stol’n from sunny flow’rs. 

Oft do I seek thy shade dear with’ring tree,
Sad emblem of my OWN disast’rous state;
Doom’d in the spring of life, alas ! like THEE
To fade, and droop beneath the frowns of FATE;
Like THEE, may Heaven to ME the meed bestow,
To shelter Sorrow’s tear, and sooth THE CHILD OF WOE.

1. Sonnet 23. To Aetna’s Scorching Sands
2. Sonnet 17. Love Steals Unheeded
3. Cupid Sleeping
4. Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick, Esq.
5. Sonnet 9. Ye, Who in Alleys Green

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