Sonnet: Why Did I Laugh Tonight?

"CANTO I.     Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave     A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,     From forth the loftiest fashion of h"

"Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there     Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;     The stars look very cold about the sky,     A"

"Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,     And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep     Like whispers of the household g"

"Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs     Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell     Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"