University of Virginia Library


45

THE COTTAGE LASS.

The cottage lass, the courtly dame,
The child of toil, and slave of fashion,
Alike disown the mystic flame,
Yet feed with sighs the tender passion.
Each heart, ere age its fervor chills,
Is doomed by turns to throb and languish,
And prove the thousand nameless thrills
Of bashful love's delicious anguish.
But infant love attempts in vain
To fan the flame with gilded pinion,
And quickly bursts the heavy chain
That ties him down to wealth's dominion.
For ah! that flame but seldom lives
In breasts with gaudy splendor laden,
Nor yields them half the joy it gives
The bashful, blooming, cottage maiden.