Sonnets :: :: University of Virginia Library

How beautiful the scene; ten thousand stars
Move in the heavens at their “own sweet will;”
The moon her higher destiny to fill,
Rideth resplendent as the shield of Mars!
The sea beneath is tranquil as a child
Hush'd by caresses on its mother's breast,
There sleeping like a statue that doth rest
By dreams unmoved. By Fancy here beguiled,
Old Ocean! I am with thee when did float
Their bark who first upon thy waves did ride;
And theirs the first to tempt the nobler tide,
Which was to waft them to strange climes remote;
Lands which Columbus oft in vision viewed,
Wandering from Court to Court in solitude!