TO A FRIEND.
Reading edition
If ever, lady, any word of mine, Spoken in sorrow, came to thy own heart With any sense of comfort or of peace, My sorrow that before was half divine Becomes a joy! and I would never part With its remembrance. Why should sorrow cease That makes one happy? I would rather twine Roses than cypress round a grief so dear; And I could set as in an emerald shrine That sadness in my soul for evermore. How gladly would I live that evening o’er Thinking of thee! Not vain, amid the scenes Of that proud park, my mood was, from the shore Watching the slow state of those ermined queens.