University of Virginia Library


105

XLVIII.

[Where alders rise up dark and dense]

Where alders rise up dark and dense
But just behind the wayside fence,
A stone there is in yonder nook
Which once I borrow'd of the brook:
You sate beside me on that stone,
Rather (not much) too wide for one.
Untoward stone! and never quite
(Tho' often very near it) right,
And putting to sore shifts my wit
To roll it out, then steady it,
And then to prove that it must be
Too hard for anyone but me.
Ianthe, haste! ere June declines
We'll write upon it all these lines.