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.