Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer

O'er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze,

  The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread;

Waving in every sighing air that stirs,

  As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread:

A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew

  Spangle the texture of the fairy loom,

As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew,

  Had wept departed Summer's transient bloom:

But the wind rises, and the turf receives

  The glittering web: — So, evanescent, fade

Bright views that Youth with sanguine heart believes:

  So vanish schemes of bliss, by Fancy made;

Which, fragile as the fleeting dews of morn,

Leave but the wither'd heath, and barren thorn!