Classic Poem

While the Moon decks herself in Neptune's glass,
And ponders o'er her image in the sea,
Her cloudy locks smoothing from off her face
That she may all as bright as Beauty be;
It is my wont to sit upon the shore
And mark with what an even grace she glides
Her two concurrent paths of azure o'er,
One in the heavens, the other in the tides;
Now with a transient veil-her face she hides,
And Ocean blackens with a human frown,
Now her fine screen of vapour she divides,
And looks with all her light of beauty down!
Her splendid smile, wide-spreading o'er the main,
Brightens the glass she gazes at again!