Classic Poem

Within this willow-woven bow'r
I'll lay my limbs to rest;
And breathe the fragrance of the mead,
In orient colours drest.

Sacred to grief, hail, hallow'd spot!
Here, long inur'd to woe,
A LEXIS tun'd the plaintive reed,
By Maiden'S mazy flow.

Reclining on this very sod,
While sorrow dimm'd his eyes,
He rais'd his suppliant hands in vain!
Relentless were the skies.

O, cruel, to refuse his boon!
How little did he crave?
'Twas but the cov'ring of a turf,
Th' oblivion of a grave.

And still more cruel, to exile
The luckless lover so!
To drive him from the lovely haunts
Of solitary woe.

Here, memory of former days
Would cheer the musing boy;
And o'er his melancholy spread
A transient gleam of joy.

But the wild hurry of a town
Recals no blissful scene;
Starves ford remembrance, and affords
No leisure to complain.

The willows, wav'd by wanton winds,
Still shade thy sedgy shore;
But rueful, Maiden ! are thy banks,
Thy muses mourn no more.

On yonder poplar's topmost bough,
Their airy harps are hung;
And silence muses on the mead,
Where midnight fairies sung.