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STANZAS TO THE NEW MOON.
  
  
  
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STANZAS TO THE NEW MOON.

Emblem too just of all that's Beauteous here!
Thou spell-crown'd Regent of the varying Earth!
Fairest of things in thy sublimer sphere,
Though changing ev'ry moment with thy birth!
Lovely Inconstant! hear the Muse's pray'r,
Nor let thy Albion's sighs be lost in air!
What though thy wasted rays were quench'd in show'rs,
And wint'ry torrents swell thy summer stream;
If softness grace thy renovating pow'rs,
Still shall thy bounty be Britannia's theme:
On thy new birth let cloudless azure shine,
And Nature's self shall bow before thy shrine.
For not her delug'd flowers alone decay,
Her Garlands these, and these unwept might die;
But, ah! her fostering food if swept away,
In one vast ruin Man's chief hope must lie:
Oh, then, let Plenty fill thy rising horn,
So still shall genial beams thy Harvest-moon adorn!