Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Lyre, I

George Darley (1795–1846)

WHEREFORE, unlaurell’d Boy,

Whom the contemptuous Muse will not inspire,

With a sad kind of joy

Still sing’st thou to thy solitary lyre?

The melancholy winds

Pour through unnumber’d reeds their idle woes,

And every Naiad finds

A stream to weep her sorrow as it flows.

Her sighs unto the air

The Wood-maid’s native oak doth broadly tell.

And Echo’s fond despair

Intelligible rocks re-syllable.

Wherefore then should not I,

Albeit no haughty Muse my heart inspire,

Fated of grief to die,

Impart it to my solitary lyre?