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 85. The Fairest Flowers Are Gone! For Tempests Fell
2. Sonnet 27. Sighing I See Yon Little Troop at Play
3. Sonnet 21. Supposed to Written by Werter
4. Sonnet 33. To the Naiad of the Arun
5. Sonnet 66. The Night-Flood Rakes

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