Mild Splendour of the various-vested Night!
 Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
 Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
 Behind the gather'd blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
 Thy placid lightning o'er the awaken'd sky.
Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
 Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despair:
But soon emerging in her radiant might
 She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.