"WHO BUT IS PLEASED TO WATCH THE MOON ON HIGH"

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Composed 1846.--Published 1850


One of the "Evening Voluntaries."--ED.


Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high

Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds

Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty

Renounces, till among the scattered clouds

One with its kindling edge declares that soon

Will reappear before the uplifted eye

A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,

To glide in open prospect through clear sky.

Pity that such a promise e'er should prove

False in the issue, that yon seeming space

Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face

Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move

(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom)

The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.

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