[From Mona's Isle, 1844]

THE ABSENT LOVER.

FORBEAR, sweet songsters of the grove,
To swell your warbling throats,
Ye mind me of my absent love
By these familiar notes
Ye used to chant, when here we stray’d
Remote from human eye,
When solar rays began to fade
Amid the evening sky;
And sigh’d the artless tale of love
Beneath the willow-shade,
While coo’d Love’s emblematic dove
Within the woodland-glade;
But now no more to me your lay
A solace can impart,
While strays that object far away
That ‘s dearest to my heart,
In famed Italia’s sunny clime,
Where love’s young cupids dwell
Amongst the myrtle and the lime,
As ancient poets tell;
Yet even there, ‘mongst myrtle bowers,
Where Love in all her charms,
Enwreath’d in Oriental flowers,
Invites him to her arms~
I’ll trust him with this plighted heart,
He never false can prove
Who pledged his vows, e’er we did part,
His Betsy still to love.
Could I, sweet plaintive bird,* like thee,
When past the genial spring,
My aeriel course o’er land and sea
Perform on pliant wing,
I’d take my unresisted flight
Unto my lover’s breast,
And there with ever-new delight
Would on his bosom rest;
But such, sweet bird, is not my fate,
Such bliss I must resign,
And mourn the absence ofmy mate
In strains resembling thine,
Until the sluggish wheels of time
Revolve another year,
And bear him to his native clime,
And me my all that’s dear :—
Blow soft, ye oriental gales,
Ye billows, cease to foam,
Let gentle zephyrs fan the sails
That waft my lover home!

* The Nightingale.