“How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures; nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!”

Thalaba the Destroyer http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/thalaba_frag.html, Bk. I, st. 1 (1800).

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Robert Southey 51
British poet 1774–1843

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