VIII.

STRANGE fits of passion I have known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's ear alone,

What once to me befel.

When she I loved was strong and gay,

And like a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath the evening Moon.

Upon the Moon I fixed my eye,

All over the wide lea;

My Horse trudged on and we drew nigh

Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard plot;

And as we climbed the hill,

Towards the roof of Lucy's cot

The Moon descended still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!

And all the while my eyes I kept

On the descending Moon.

My Horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,

At once, the bright Moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a Lover's head!

"O mercy!" to myself I cried,

IX.

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

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

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her Grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

X.

I TRAVELLED 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.

XI.

ERE with cold beads of midnight dew

Had mingled tears of thine,

I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst sue To haughty Geraldine.

Immoveable by generous sighs,
She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,

An Oriental Chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,

Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss

Their branches in mid air.

The humblest Rivulet will take

Its own wild liberties;

And, every day, the imprisoned Lake
Is flowing in the breeze.

Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,

But scorn with scorn outbrave;

A Britain, even in love, should be

A subject, not a slave !