Cosmo De' Medici :: :: University of Virginia Library

The intolerant sun sinks down with glaring eye
Behind the horizontal desert-line,
And upwards casts his robes to float on high,
Suffusing all the clouds with his decline;
Till their intense gold doth incarnadine,
And melt in angry hues, which darken as they die.

Slow rose the naked beauty of the Moon
In broad relief against the gloomy vault:
Each smouldering field in azure melted soon,
Before the tenderness of that assault;
And the pure Image that men's souls exalt,
Stood high aloof from earth, as in some vision'd swoon.

But now she seem'd, from that clear altitude,
To gaze below, with a far-sheening smile,
On Arab tents, gay groups, and gambols rude,
As in maternal sympathy the while;
And now, like swarming bees, o'er many a mile
Forth rush the swarthy forms o' the gilded multitude!