| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | To the Night Blooming Cereus | | By Henry Pickering (1781–1838) |
| | | BRIGHT, transient flower, that studious shunn’st the eye | |
| Of Phœbus, waiting only to display | |
| Thy glories to the moon’s cold, watery ray, | |
| And yield thy fragrance to the desert sky— | |
| Mysterious Flower! alas! shall we descry | 5 |
| No trace of what thou wast, the coming day— | |
| Odorous no more, and fallen to decay! | |
| Ah! who has not seen, and heaved a rending sigh— | |
| Who has not seen, nurtur’d like thee in shade, | |
| Fragrant as morn, and bursting on the sight, | 10 |
| With radiant beauty crown’d, the blushing maid; | |
| Then, withering in the blast, quick sink in night? | |
| Both bloom’d and perish’d: while to that ’t is given | |
| Ne’er to revive—lo! this ascends to Heaven. | | | | |
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