SONNET [58] LVIII. The Glow Worm. Charlotte Smith (née Turner) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
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Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. N22357 Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749-1806. Elegiac sonnets, and other poems. By Charlotte Smith. The first Worcester edition, from the sixth London edition, with additions. Printed at Worcester [Mass.] by Isaiah Thomas, sold by him in Worcester, and by said Thomas and Andrews in Boston 1795 p. 78. xix,[2],22-126,[2]p.,[5] leaves of plates: ill.; 15 cm. (12mo)

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SONNET [ 58 ] LVIII. The Glow Worm . WHEN , on some balmy breathing night of Spring , The happy child , to whom the world is new , Pursues the evening moth , of mealy wing , Or from the heathbell beats the sparkling dew ; He sees before his inexperienc'd eyes , The brilliant Glow Worm , like a meteor , shine On the turf bank ; — amaz'd and pleas'd he cries ' Star of the dewy grass ! — I make thee mine ! ' .

Star of the earth . Dr. Darwin .

Then , ere he sleep , collects ' the moisten'd ' flow'r ,

The moisten'd blade — Wolcet's beautiful Ode to the Glow Worm .

And bids soft leaves his glittering prize enfold , And dreams that fairy lamps illume his bow'r : Yet with the morning , shudders to behold His lucid treasure , rayless as the dust ; So turn the world's bright joys , to cold and blank disgust .