Sonnet: 'After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains'

After dark vapours have oppress'd our plains

      For a long dreary season, comes a day

      Born of the gentle South, and clears away

From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.

The anxious month, relieved of its pains,

      Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;

      The eyelids with the passing coolness play,

Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.

And calmest thoughts come round us; as, of leaves

      Budding,—fruit ripening in stillness,—Autumn suns

Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,—

Sweet Sappho's cheek,—a sleeping infant's breath,—

      The gradual sand that through an hourglass runs,—

A woodland rivulet,—a Poet's death.