Now day survives the sun

Josiah Conder is a poet unknown to me; born in 1789. he was a non-conformist and abolitionist… I must find out more about him, in the meantime, here is his sonnet:

Summer

Now day survives the sun. The pale grey skies
A sort of dull and dubious lustre keep
As with their own light shining. Nature lies
Slumbering, and gazing on me in her sleep,
So still, so mute, with fixed and soul-less eyes.
The sun is set, yet not a star is seen:
Distinct the landscape, save where intervene
The creeping mists that from the dark stream rise;
Now spread into a sea with islets broken,
And woodland points, now poised on the thin air:
In the black west the clouds a storm betoken
And all things seem a spectral gloom to wear.
The cautious bat resents the lingering light,
And the long-folded sheep wonder it is not night.