Penny Dreadfuls, 1812 · page 173 of 258
Psyche, and other poems — page 173: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 155: A Sonnet This is a text page from the body of a Victorian penny dreadful, numbered 155. It contains a single sonnet titled simply "SONNET." The poem describes the fleeting beauty of sunset visions—comparing Phoebus (the sun) departing the earth to the transient nature of human hope and joy. The speaker reflects on how approaching darkness and melancholy resemble a past loss that dimmed their happiness, though memory preserves these faded scenes like moonlight reflecting on dark plains. The sonnet appears to be thematically melancholic, exploring loss, memory, and the passage of time.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
155 SONNET. | Wuewn glowing Phebus quits the weeping earth, What sptendid 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 fevealed, reflect a mellawing ray. , COMnnicoooks.com