I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs ;
The name they dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church,
Is finished using now,
And they can put it with my dolls,
Live all thy sweet life thro',
Sweet Rose, dew-sprent,
Drop down thine evening dew
To gather it anew
When day is bright:
I fancy thou wast meant
Chiefly to give delight.
Most blest is he who in the morning time
Sets forth upon his journey with no staff
Shaped by another for his use. Who sees
The imminent necessity for toil,
After the battles are over,
And the war drums cease to beat,
And no more is heard on the hillside
The sound of hurrying feet,
Full many a noble action,
That was done in the days of strife
O TO make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
If rightly tuneful bards decide,
If it be fix'd in Love's decrees,
That Beauty ought not to be tried
But by its native power to please,
Then tell me, youths and lovers, tell—