 | The poems (1969) |  |
30 ‘No longer ask me, gentle friends’
549
No longer ask me, gentle friends,
Why heaves my constant sigh,
Or why my eye for ever bends
To yon fair eastern sky.
Why view the clouds that onward roll?
Ah, who can fate command?
While here I sit, my wandering soul
Is in a distant land.
Why heaves my constant sigh,
Or why my eye for ever bends
To yon fair eastern sky.
Why view the clouds that onward roll?
Ah, who can fate command?
While here I sit, my wandering soul
Is in a distant land.
Did ye not hear of Delia's name,
When on a fatal day
O'er yonder northern hills she came
And brought an earlier May?
Or if the month her bloomy store
By gentle custom brought,
She ne'er was half so sweet before
To my delighted thought.
When on a fatal day
O'er yonder northern hills she came
And brought an earlier May?
550
By gentle custom brought,
She ne'er was half so sweet before
To my delighted thought.
She found me in my southern vale,
All in her converse blest:
My [OMITTED] heart began to fail
Within my youngling breast.
I thought when as her
To me of lowly birth,
There lived not aught so good and kind
On all the smiling earth.
All in her converse blest:
My [OMITTED] heart began to fail
Within my youngling breast.
I thought when as her
To me of lowly birth,
There lived not aught so good and kind
On all the smiling earth.
To Resnel's banks, again to greet
Her gentle eyes, I strayed,
Where once a bard with infant feet
Among the willows played:
His tender thoughts subdue the fair
And melt the soft and young,
But mine I know were softer there
Than ever poet sung.
Her gentle eyes, I strayed,
Where once a bard with infant feet
Among the willows played:
551
And melt the soft and young,
But mine I know were softer there
Than ever poet sung.
I showed her there the songs of one
Who, done to death by pride,
Though Virtue's friend and Fancy's son,
In love unpitied died.
I hoped when to that shepherd's truth
Her pity should attend,
She would not leave another youth
To meet his luckless end.
Who, done to death by pride,
Though Virtue's friend and Fancy's son,
In love unpitied died.
I hoped when to that shepherd's truth
Her pity should attend,
She would not leave another youth
To meet his luckless end.
Now tell me, you who hear me sing
And prompt the tender theme,
How far is Lavant's little spring
From Medway's mightier stream.
Confined within my native dells,
The world I little know,
But in some tufted mead she dwells,
Where'er those waters flow.
And prompt the tender theme,
How far is Lavant's little spring
From Medway's mightier stream.
552
The world I little know,
But in some tufted mead she dwells,
Where'er those waters flow.
There too resorts a maid, renowned
For framing ditties sweet:
I heard her lips [OMITTED]
Her gentle lays repeat.
They told how sweetly in her bower
A greenwood nymph complained,
Of Melancholy's gloomy power,
And joys from Wisdom gained.
For framing ditties sweet:
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Her gentle lays repeat.
They told how sweetly in her bower
A greenwood nymph complained,
Of Melancholy's gloomy power,
And joys from Wisdom gained.
Sweet sung that muse and fair befall
Her life, whose happy art,
What other bards might envy all,
Can touch my Laura's heart.
Sweet oaten reeds for her I'll make
And chaplets for her hair,
If she, for friendly pity's sake,
Will whisper Damon there.
Her life, whose happy art,
What other bards might envy all,
Can touch my Laura's heart.
554
And chaplets for her hair,
If she, for friendly pity's sake,
Will whisper Damon there.
Her strain shall dim, if aught succeeds
From my applauding tongue,
Whate'er within her native meads
The tuneful Thyrsis sung:
Less to my love shall he be dear,
Although he earliest paid
Full many a soft and tender tear
To luckless Collins's shade!
From my applauding tongue,
Whate'er within her native meads
The tuneful Thyrsis sung:
Less to my love shall he be dear,
Although he earliest paid
Full many a soft and tender tear
To luckless Collins's shade!
| The poems (1969) | |