Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Charles Wolfe (17911823)Song: O say not that my heart is cold
O
To aught that once could warm it;
That Nature’s form, so dear of old,
No more has power to charm it;
Or that the ungenerous world can chill
One glow of fond emotion
For those who made it dearer still,
And shared my wild devotion.
In rapt and dreamy sadness;
Oft look on those who loved them too
With Fancy’s idle gladness;
Again I longed to view the light
In Nature’s features glowing,
Again to tread the mountain’s height,
And taste the soul’s o’erflowing.
His leaden chain around me;
With iron look and sullen tongue
He muttered as he bound me:
‘The mountain breeze, the boundless heaven,
Unfit for toil the creature;
These for the free alone were given,—
But what have slaves with Nature?’