Sonnet I

When glowing Phoebus quits the weeping earth,
What splendid visions rise upon the sight!
Fancy, with transient charms and colours bright,
To changing forms in Heaven's gay scene gives birth:
But soon the melting beauties disappear,
And fade like those which in life's early bloom
Hope bade me prize; and the approaching gloom,
These tints of sadness, and these shades of fear,
Resemble most that melancholy hour
Which, with a silent and resistless power,
Shrouded my joy's bright beam in shadowy night:
Till Memory marks each scene which once shone gay;
As the dark plains, beneath the Moon's soft light,
Again revealed, reflect a mellowing ray.