Sonnet

After dark vapours have oppress’d our plains
  For a long dreary season, comes a day
  Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved its pains,
  Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
  The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us; as, of leaves
  Budding,⁠—fruit ripening in stillness,⁠—Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,⁠—
Sweet Sappho’s cheek,⁠—a sleeping infant’s breath,⁠—
  The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,⁠—
A woodland rivulet,⁠—a Poet’s death.