WHEN on some balmy-breathing night of Spring <br />The happy child, to whom the world is new, <br />Pursues the evening moth, of mealy wing, <br />Or from the heath-bell beats the sparkling dew; <br />He sees before his inexperienced eyes <br />The brilliant Glow-worm, like a meteor, shine <br />On the turf-bank;--amazed, and pleased, he cries, <br />'Star of the dewy grass!--I make thee mine!'-- <br />Then, ere he sleep, collects 'the moisten'd' flower, <br />And bids soft leaves his glittering prize enfold, <br />And dreams that Fairy-lamps illume his bower: <br />Yet with the morning shudders to behold <br />His lucid treasure, rayless as the dust! <br />--So turn the world's bright joys to cold and blank disgust.<br /><br />Charlotte Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-lviii-the-glow-worm/
