Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even <br />Silently takest thine aethereal way, <br />And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray <br />Twinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven,-- <br />Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou <br />Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom, <br />Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow <br />A watch-light by the patriot's lonely tomb; <br />A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor; <br />A spark, though gleaming on the hovel’s hearth, <br />Which through the tyrant’s gilded domes shall roar; <br />A beacon in the darkness of the Earth; <br />A sun which, o'er the renovated scene, <br />Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been.<br /><br />Percy Bysshe Shelley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-to-a-balloon-laden-with-knowledge/
