Page:Poems By Chauncy Hare Townshend.djvu/308

 SONNETS. IV. THE WINTER'S NOON. THI morning mists had melted all away, The sun shone brightly on the frozen brook; When o'er the pathless common slow I took, With devious step, my unattended way: Dissolving fast before the genial ray, Soon .the thin ice each leafy stem forsook, Save, where an evergreen one lonely nook O'erhung, and shielded from the amorous day The virgin bosom of the snow-white ground. And thus, (I cried) when Fancys fairy hues, Which once so sweetly cloth'd each object round, Before bright Reason's beam their beauties lose, Still are their latest relics lingering found Beneath the sheltering laurel of the muse. ......... Google

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