To the Autumnal Moon

Mild splendor 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.