SONNET, TO THE LILLY. Ann Radcliffe (née Ward) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Radcliffe, Ann Ward, 1764-1823. The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. London printed by and for J. Smith, Princes Street 1816 pp. 10-11. 118p. [Radcliffe's poems only, pp. 1-95]

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SONNET , TO THE LILLY . Soft silken flow'r ! that in the dewy vale Unfolds thy modest beauties to the morn , And breath'st thy fragrance on her wand'ring gale , O'er earth's green hills and shadowy vallies born ; When day has closed his dazzling eye , And dying gales sink soft away ; When Eve steals down the western sky , And mountains , woods , and vales decay ; Thy tender cups , that graceful swell , Droop sad beneath her chilly dews ; Thy odours seek their silken cell , And twilight veils thy languid hues . But soon , fair flow'r ! the morn shall rise , And rear again thy pensive head ; Again unveil thy snowy dyes , Again thy velvet foliage spread . Sweet child of Spring ! like thee in sorrow's shade , Full oft I mourn in tears , and droop forlorn : And O ! like thine , may light my gloom pervade , And Sorrow fly before Joy's living morn !