Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
George Darley. 17951846640. Song
SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, | |
Lull’d by the faint breezes sighing through her hair; | |
Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers | |
Breathed to my sad lute ‘mid the lonely air. | |
Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming | 5 |
To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above: | |
O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, | |
I too could glide to the bower of my love! | |
Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her, | |
Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, | 10 |
Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, | |
To her lost mate’s call in the forests far away. | |
Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest, | |
Still Heaven’s messenger of comfort to me— | |
Come—this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest, | 15 |
Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee! |