When down behind the cottage roof, What fond and wayward thoughts will slide "O mercy!" to myself I cried, "If Lucy should be dead! SHE dwelt VIII. among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh! The difference to me! IX. I TRAVELLED among unknown men, What love I bore to thee. "Tis past, that melancholy dream! A second time; for still I seem Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire. Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed, 1799. X. ERE with cold beads of midnight dew I grieve, fond youth! that thou shouldst sue Immovable by generous sighs, She glories in a train Who drag, beneath our native skies, An Oriental chain. Pine not like them with arms across, How the fast-rooted trees can toss The humblest rivulet will take Its own wild liberties; And, every day, the imprisoned lake Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee, A Briton, even in love, should be LOOK at the fate of summer flowers, Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song; Measured by all that, trembling, we foresee, If human Life do pass away, Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower, What space hath Virgin's beauty to disclose Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breathing rose? Not even an hour! The deepest grove whose foliage hid Then shall love teach some virtuous Youth That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm, 1824. THE XII. THE FORSAKEN. peace which others seek they find; When will my sentence be reversed? O weary struggle ! silent years XIII. 'Tis said, that some have died for love: And there is one whom I five years have known: He dwells alone Upon Helvellyn's side: He loved, the pretty Barbara died; And thus he makes his moan: Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid When thus his moan he made: |