WHEN from the hills was fading fast,
The summer ev’ning’s purple glow;
And the lone sky-lark soaring high,
Sung his last vespers clear and slow.
A youth alighted from his steed,
To muse by Eden’s sounding stream,
Through glade and thicket as he stray’d,
Iudulging fancy’s waking dream;
Scenes of his childhood and his youth,
Haunts of his early friends they were;
And tender recollections rose,
Upon his pensive memory there.
A solitary taper’s light,
From a lone cottage shed a gleam;
Upon the orchard’s mossy wall
He lean’d, to gaze upon its beam;
There long in silent thought he paus’d,
For there had dwelt his favourite maid,
Till thought too keen for silence grew,
And thus with fault’ring tones he said;
” Oh happy scenes! oh days of peace!
” Ere I had mingled with mankind,
” Those scenes unalter’d still remain,
” But peace no longer here I find.
” On every plain, in every shade,
” I see Louisa’s image rise,
” As when in op’ning beauty fair,
” Her smiles attracted first my eyes.
” A gentle stripling then was I,
” Nor the bad world had school’d my youth;
” And she an artless, rustic maid,
” All sweetness, innocence, and truth.
” Why did I leave this peaceful vale?
” Th’ abode of happiness and health;
” To learn the follies of the town
” And peace forego in search of wealth.
” Why did I tell the gentle maid,
” Her love was dearest wealth to me;
” And promise with a thousand vows,
” To her unshaken constancy.
” Why did I promise to return,
” And make her my admired bride;
” Then break my promise and my vows,
” Misled by vanity and pride.
” Now she has left her native vale,
” And to an unknown region stray’d-
” Yet will I seek her new abode,
” Yet will I find the injur’d maid;
” And if her kind and gen’rous heart,
” My long unkindness can forgive;
” I’ll seek again these peaceful vales
” Here with content and her to live.
(Isabella Lickbarrow)
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