Слике страница
PDF
ePub

EDWARD GRAY.

SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town

Met me walking on yonder way,

"And have lost you

heart? your

" 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.

66

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!"

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,

To which I most resort,

How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers,

But such whose father-grape grew

fat

On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,

But may she still be kind,

And whisper lovely words, and use

Her influence on the mind,

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 183

To make me write my random rhymes,

Ere they be half-forgotten;

Nor add and alter, many times,

Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,

And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favour'd lips of mine;

Until the charm have power to make
New lifeblood warm the bosom,

And barren commonplaces break

To full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board :
Her gradual fingers steal

And touch upon the master-chord

Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,

And phantom hopes assemble;

And that child's heart, within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.

« ПретходнаНастави »