The professor and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Nay, nay, my sweet; it is not well
That thou should'st sorrow: ah, be free!
I did but loose the piteous spell,
And gave thee back thy liberty,
And thou shalt find some gracious mate
To worship thee, to bend above,
More apt than I to dedicate
His gallant prowess to thy love;
And when some tender voice shall name
Thee “Mother,” from thy guarded nest,

I too will come, and softly frame
A blessing on the trebly-blest;
And thou shalt think of me as one
Whose soul, in days far-off yet dear,
Thou didst irradiate, as the sun
Who, circling in his statelier sphere,
Awakes, by some sequestered stream,
A flower, that in his narrow tomb
Had slept in blind despair, to dream
Of sweetness, and be crowned with bloom.
It blooms, it flushes; though the dew
Upon its tender leaves be wet,
It knows the source from whence it drew
Its sweetness, and shall draw it yet.