1.
Since now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious
lover;
Since now, our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all
is over.
2.
Alas! that pang will be severe,
Which bids us part to meet
no more;
Which tears me far from one so
dear,
Departing for a distant
shore.
3.
Well! we have pass’d some happy
hours,
And joy will mingle with our
tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant
years;
4.
Where from this Gothic casement’s
height,
We view’d the lake,
the park, the dell,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell,
5.
O’er fields through which we us’d
to run,
And spend the hours in childish
play;
O’er shades where, when our race
was done,
Reposing on my breast you
lay;
6.
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hovering
flies,
Yet envied every fly the kiss,
It dar’d to give your
slumbering eyes:
7.
See still the little painted bark,
In which I row’d you
o’er the lake;
See there, high waving o’er the
park,
The elm I clamber’d
for your sake.
8.
These times are past, our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy
vale;
These scenes, I must retrace alone;
Without thee, what will they
avail?
9.
Who can conceive, who has not prov’d,
The anguish of a last embrace?
When, torn from all you fondly lov’d,
You bid a long adieu to peace.
10.
This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears
our cheeks bedew;
This is of love the final close,
Oh, God! the fondest, last
adieu!
1805.
[Footnote 1: To Maria—[4to]]
