Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton yew-trees, Gresford bells,
Llangollen bridge and St. Winifred's well.

As I walked out in yonder dell,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
I met a fair damsel, her name it was Nell;
I said, “Will you be a true lover of mine?

“I want you to make me a cambric shirt,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Without any seam or needlework,
And then you shall be a true lover of mine.

“I want you to wash it on yonder hill,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;
Where dew never was nor rain never fell,
And then you shall be a true lover of mine.

“I want you to dry it on yonder thorn,
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time;

And could'st thou, youthful songstress, prove
The pangs, the bliss that wait on love;
While from that careless air of thine,
Thou seem'st to worship at the shrine
Of chill indiff'rence;—yet so well
You paint the boy, that sure his spell
The urchin round thy hearth did steal;
We best express what most we feel.

Statesmen, in your exalted station know
Sins of omission for commission go;
Since ships as often founder on the main
From leaks unstopped as from the hurricane.
Shore up your house; it totters to the base;
A mouldering rot corrodes it; and the trace
Of every crime you punish I descry:
The least of all perhaps is sodomy.

Let's make sake, strong and clear, from early rice.
Let's extract sake, using the clear water under the willow.

Women as women, me had never charmed,
And shafts that others felt left me unharmed.
But thou, Giraud, whose beauty would unlock
The gates of prejudice, and bid me mock
The sober fears that timid minds endure,
Whose ardent passions women only cure,
Receive this faithful tribute to thy charms,
Not vowed alone, but paid too in thy arms.
For here the wish, long cherished, long denied,
Within that monkish cell was gratified.
And as the sage, who dwelt on Leman's lake,
Nobly his inmost meditations spake,
Then dared the man, who would like him confess

Today I parted from my love.
When will we meet again?
The bright lamp shines on the empty chess-board—
So long and still no mate.

Thou ermined judge, pull off that sable cap!
What! Cans't thou lie, and take thy morning nap?
Peep thro' the casement; see the gallows there:
Thy work hangs on it; could not mercy spare?
What had he done? Ask crippled Talleyrand,
Ask Beckford, Courtenay, all the motley band
Of priest and laymen, who have shared his guilt
(If guilt it be) then slumber if thou wilt;
What bonds had he of social safety broke?
Found'st thou the dagger hid beneath his cloak?
He stopped no lonely traveller on the road;
He burst no lock, he plundered no abode;

Then, say, was I or nature in the wrong,
If, yet a boy, one inclination, strong
In wayward fancies, domineered my soul,
And bade complete defiance to control?
What, though my youthful instincts, forced to brood
Within my bosom seemed a while subdued?
What, though by early education taught,
The charms of women first my homage caught?
What though my verse in Mary's praises flowed
And flowers poetic round her footsteps strewed,
Yet, when her ears would list not to my strain,
And every sigh was answered with disdain,

When James, our great monarch, so wise and discreet,
Was gone with three barges to face the Dutch fleet,
Our young prince of Wales, by inheritance stout,
Was coming to aid him and peeped his head out;
But seeing his father, without ships or men,
Commit the defense of us all to a chain,
Taffy was frighted and skulked in again;
Nor thought, while the Dutch domineered in our road,
It was safe to come further and venture abroad.
Not Waldegrave, or th'epistle of seigneur le duke,
Made Her Majesty sick, and her royal womb puke;