Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

VIII.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A Violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye!

-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 TRAVELL'D among unknown Men,
In Lands beyond the Sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

"Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And She I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings shewed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played; And thine is too the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

[ocr errors][merged small]

I MET Louisa in the shade;

And, having seen that lovely Maid,

Why should I fear to say

That she is ruddy, fleet, and strong;

And down the rocks can leap along,
Like rivulets in May?

And she hath smiles to earth unknown; Smiles, that with motion of their own

Do spread, and sink, and rise;

That come and go with endless play,

And ever, as they pass away,

Are hidden in her eyes.

She loves her fire, her Cottage-home;

Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and bleak;

And, when against the wind she strains,

Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
That sparkle on her cheek,

Take all that's mine "beneath the moon,"

If I with her but half a noon

May sit beneath the walls

Of some old cave, or mossy nook,

When

up

she winds along the brook,

To hunt the waterfalls.

XI.

"Tis said, that some have died for love:

And here and there a church-yard grave is found In the cold North's unhallowed ground,

Because the wretched Man himself had slain,

His love was such a grievous pain.

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;

"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak!

Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky!

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »