Sonnet XXIII. By The Same. To The North Star.

TO thy bright beams I turn my swimming eyes,
Fair, favourite planet, which in happier days
Saw my young hopes, ah, faithless hopes!--arise,
And on my passion shed propitious rays.
Now nightly wandering 'mid the tempests drear
That howl the woods and rocky steeps among,
I love to see thy sudden light appear
Through the swift clouds--driven by the wind along:
Or in the turbid water, rude and dark,
O'er whose wild stream the gust of Winter raves,
Thy trembling light with pleasure still I mark,
Gleam in faint radiance on the foaming waves!
So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly,
Then fade:--and leave me to despair and die.