The Poetical Works of David Gray A New and Enlarged Edition; Edited by Henry Glassford Bell |
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The Moon. |
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 | The Poetical Works of David Gray |  |
186
The Moon.
I
Come, light-foot Lady! from thy vaporous hall,And, with a silver-swim into the air,
Shine down the starry cressets one and all
From Pleiades to golden Jupiter!
I see a growing tip of silver peep
Above the full-fed cloud, and lo! with motion
Of queenly stateliness, and smooth as sleep,
She glides into the blue for my devotion.
O sovran Beauty! standing here alone
Under the insufferable infinite,
I worship with dazed eyes and feeble moan
Thy lucid persecution of delight.
Come, cloudy dimness! Dip, fair dream, again!
O God! I cannot gaze, for utter pain.
187
II
With what a calm serenity she smoothsHer way thro' cloudless jasper sown with stars!
Chaster than virtue, sweeter than sweet truths
Of maidenhood, in Spenser's knightly wars.
For what is all Belphoebe's golden hair,
The chastity of Britomart, the love
Of Florimel so faithful and so fair,
To thee, thou Wonder! And yet far above
Thy inoffensive beauty must I hold
Dear Una, sighing for the Red-cross Knight
Thro' all her losses, crosses manifold.
And when the lordly lion fell in fight,
Who, who can paragon her tearful woe?
Not thou, O Moon! didst ever passion so.
| The Poetical Works of David Gray | |