It Is a Fearful Night - Curvo Semedo

“It is a fearful night; a feeble glare
  Streams from the sick moon in the o’erclouded sky;
  The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,
  Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare;
No bark the madness of the waves will dare;
  The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high;
  Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die,
  Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair?”—
As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried,
  I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright,
  A messenger of gladness, at my side;
To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light;
  And as we furrowed Tejo’s heaving tide,
  I never saw so beautiful a night.

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Belchior Manoel Curvo Semedo (1766 – 1838) Portugal
Translated by William Cullen Bryant
Source: The Sonnets of Europe, ed. by Samuel Waddington. London: Walter Scott, 1888

• Tejo - the river Tagus