Poem by Charlotte Turner Smith

Sonnet 58. The Glow-Worm

WHEN on some balmy-breathing night of Spring
The happy child, to whom the world is new,
Pursues the evening moth, of mealy wing,
Or from the heath-bell beats the sparkling dew;
He sees before his inexperienced eyes
The brilliant Glow-worm, like a meteor, shine
On the turf-bank;--amazed, and pleased, he cries,
"Star of the dewy grass!--I make thee mine!"--
Then, ere he sleep, collects "the moisten'd" flower,
And bids soft leaves his glittering prize enfold,
And dreams that Fairy-lamps illume his bower:
Yet with the morning shudders to behold
His lucid treasure, rayless as the dust!
--So turn the world's bright joys to cold and blank disgust.

1. Sonnet 9. Blest is yon shepherd, on the turf reclined
2. Sonnet 33. To the Naiad of the Arun
3. Sonnet 16. From Petrarch (YE vales and woods! fair scenes of happier hours!)
4. Sonnet 43. The Unhappy Exile
5. Sonnet 66. The Night-Flood Rakes

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