Classic Poem

When glowing Phoebus quits the weeping earth,
What splendid visions rise upon the sight!
Fancy, with transient charms and colours bright,
To changing forms in Heaven's gay scene gives birth:
But soon the melting beauties disappear,
And fade like those which in life's early bloom
Hope bade me prize; and the approaching gloom,
These tints of sadness, and these shades of fear,
Resemble most that melancholy hour
Which, with a silent and resistless power,
Shrouded my joy's bright beam in shadowy night:
Till Memory marks each scene which once shone gay;
As the dark plains, beneath the Moon's soft light,
Again revealed, reflect a mellowing ray