To Emma
Lines:40Movement:Romanticism
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. 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. 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; 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, 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; 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: 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. 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? 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. _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!