Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse/The Rising Moon

by Lydia Sigourney

THE RISING MOON.

BENEATH the soft glance of the slow-rising moon,
    Where the landscape was silent I rov'd,
While pleasures departed by memory were shewn,
    And I thought of the friends I had lov'd.

The mild breeze of eve through the branches that sigh'd,
    Let fall its pure dews on my cheek,
And my heart, as it quicken'd its rapturous tide,
    Felt more than my language could speak.

"I give, Holy Father, my being to thee!
    Oh, deign to accept of the boon;
Most humbly I render this sacrifice free,
    As I gaze on the fair, rising moon.

Protect me from folly, preserve me from change,
    From darkness, and errors, and cares;
And while thro' this field of temptation I range,
    Oh, break thou its charms and its snares.

And soon may I reach that blest mansion afar,
    Where the toils of this journey are o'er;
Where the pale rising moon, and the mild evening star
    Shall shed their weak lustre no more.

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