When down behind the cottage roof, What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a Lover's head! "O mercy!" to myself I cried, "If Lucy should be dead! 1799. VIII. SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways A maid whom there were none to praise And A violet by a mossy stone Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. 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, 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! 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, And thine too is the last green field 1799. X. ERE with cold beads of midnight dew I grieve, fond youth! that thou shouldst sue Immovable by generous sighs, Who drag, beneath our native skies, 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, But scorn with scorn' outbrave; A Briton, even in love, should be A subject, not a slave! Look at the fate of summer flowers, Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song; If human Life do pass away, Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower, The deepest grove whose foliage hid Then shall love teach some virtuous Youth 1824. XII. THE FORSAKEN. THE peace which others seek they find; When will my sentence be reversed? O weary struggle ! silent years And yet they leave it short, and fears 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 : |