Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town

Met me walking on yonder way,

‘And have you lost your heart?’ she said;

‘And are you married yet, Edward Gray?’

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:

Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:

‘Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more

Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

‘Ellen Adair she loved me well,

Against her father’s and mother’s will:

To-day I sat for an hour and wept,

By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.

‘Shy she was, and I thought her cold;

Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;

Fill’d I was with folly and spite,

When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

‘Cruel, cruel the words I said!

Cruelly came they back to-day:

“You’re too slight and fickle,” I said,

“To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.”

‘There I put my face in the grass—

Whisper’d, “Listen to my despair:

I repent me of all I did:

Speak a little, Ellen Adair!”

‘Then I took a pencil, and wrote

On the mossy stone, as I lay,

“Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;

And here the heart of Edward Gray!”

‘Love may come, and love may go,

And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:

But I will love no more, no more,

Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

‘Bitterly wept I over the stone:

Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:

There lies the body of Ellen Adair!

And there the heart of Edward Gray!’