William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
Love’s Young DreamThomas Moore (1779–1852)
O
My heart’s chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.
New hope may bloom,
And days may come
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream:
No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.
When wild youth’s past;
Tho’ he win the wise, who frown’d before,
To smile at last;
He’ll never meet
A joy so sweet,
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman’s ear,
His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blush’d to hear
The one loved name.
Which first love traced;
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory’s waste.
’Twas odour fled
As soon as shed;
’Twas morning’s wingèd dream;
’Twas a light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream:
Oh! ’twas light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream.