Poem by Charlotte Turner Smith

Sonnet 63. The Gossamer

O'er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze,
  The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread;
Waving in every sighing air that stirs,
  As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread:
A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew
  Spangle the texture of the fairy loom,
As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew,
  Had wept departed Summer's transient bloom:
But the wind rises, and the turf receives
  The glittering web: — So, evanescent, fade
Bright views that Youth with sanguine heart believes:
  So vanish schemes of bliss, by Fancy made;
Which, fragile as the fleeting dews of morn,
Leave but the wither'd heath, and barren thorn!

1. Sonnet 67. On Passing over a Dreary Tract
2. Sonnet 32. To Melancholy. Written on the Banks of the Arun, October, 1785
3. Sonnet Written at Penshurst in Autumn, 1788
4. Sonnet 42. Composed During a Walk
5. Verses, on the Death of the Same Lady

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