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