Ye vales and woods! fair scenes of happier hours;
Ye feather'd people, tenants of the grove;
And you, bright stream! befringed with shrubs and flowers;
Behold my grief, ye witnesses of love!

For ye beheld my infant passion rise,
And saw thro' years unchang'd my faithful flame;
Now cold, in dust, the beauteous object lies,
And you, ye conscious scenes, are still the same!

While busy Memory still delights to dwell
On all the charms these bitter tears deplore,
And with a trembling hand describes too well

Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam,
And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,
And where, with liquid lapse, the lucid stream
Across the fretted rock is heard to flow,
Pensive I lay: when she whom earth conceals,
As if still living to my eyes appears,
And pitying Heaven her angel form reveals,
To say — " Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears;
Ah! why, sad lover! thus before your time,
In grief and sadness should your life decay,
And like a blighted flower, your manly prime
In vain and hopeless sorrow fade away?

Oh! place me where the burning noon
Forbids the wither'd flower to blow;
Or place me in the frigid zone,
On mountains of eternal snow:
Let me pursue the steps of Fame,
Or Poverty's more tranquil road;
Let youth's warm tide my veins inflame,
Or sixty winters chill my blood:
Tho' my fond soul to heaven were flown,
Or tho' on earth 'tis doom'd to pine,
Prisoner or free — obscure or known,
My heart, O Laura, still is thine.
Whate'er my destiny may be,
That faithful heart still burns for thee!

I fynde no peace and all my warr is done,
I fere and hope, I burne and freise like yse;
I fley above the wynde yet can I not arrise,
And noght I have and all the worold I seson.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I scape nowise;
Nor letteth me lyve nor dye at my devise,
And yet of deth it gyveth me occasion.
Withoute Iyen, I se, and withoute tong I plain,
I desire to perisshe, and yet I aske helthe,
I love an othre, and thus I hate my self,
I fede me in sorrowe and laughe in all my pain,

Love that doth raine and live within my thought,
And buylt his seat within my captyve brest,
Clad in the armes wherein with me he fowght
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
But she that tawght me love and suffre paine,
My doubfull hope and eke my hote desire
With shamfast clooke to shadoo and refrayne,
Her smyling grace convertyth streight to yre.
And cowarde love then to the hart apace
Taketh his flight, where he doth lorke and playne
His purpose lost, and dare not shew his face.
For my lordes gylt thus fawtles byde I payine;

Thou green and blooming, cool and shaded hill,
Where sits, now songful, now in thought, thy guest,
By whom the world's of glory dispossessed,
And heavenly spirits are made credible —
My heart, which quitted me for her (what skill
He showed; and if he come not back, shows best!)
Goes on relating, how that foot hath pressed,
And how those eyes the sward are softening still.
He says, and with a shrug at every pace,
" Oh were that caitiff here a little now,
Who is so tired of tears and of his lot! "
She smiles, and how unequal is the case,

Loose to the wind her golden tresses stream'd,
Forming bright waves with amorous Zephyr's sighs;
And tho' averted now, her charming eyes
Then with warm love, and melting pity beam'd.
Was I deceived? — Ah! surely, nymph divine!
That fine suffusion on thy cheek was love;
What wonder then those beauteous tints should move,
Should fire this heart, this tender heart of mine!
Thy soft melodious voice, thy air, thy shape,
Were of a goddess — not a mortal maid;
Yet tho' thy charms, thy heavenly charms should fade,

If it be destined that my Life, from thine
Divided, yet with thine shall linger on
Till, in the later twilight of Decline,
I may behold those Eyes, their luster gone;
When the gold tresses that enrich thy brow
Shall all be faded into silver-gray,
From which the wreaths that well bedeck them now
For many a Summer shall have fall'n away;
Then should I dare to whisper in your ears
The pent up Passion of so long ago,
That Love which hath survived the wreck of years
Hath little else to pray for, or bestow,

If amorous faith, a heart of guileless ways,
Soft languors, courteously controlled desire,
And virtuous will, kindled with noble fire,
And lengthened wanderings in a lightless maze;
If thoughts, which evermore the brow displays,
Or words that faint and brokenly suspire,
Still checked with fear and shame; if hues no higher
Than the pale violet hath, or love displays;
If holding some one than one's self more dear,
If sorrowing and sighing evermore,
If chewing grief, and rage, and many a cross,
If burning far away, and freezing near,

Set me wheras the sonne dothe perche the grene,
Or whear his beames may not dissolve the Ise,
In temprat heat wheare he is felt and sene;
With prowde people, in presence sad and wyse;
Set me in base, or yet in highe degree,
In the long night or in the shortyst day,
In clere weather or whear mysts thikest be,
In lusty yowthe, or when my heares be grey;
Set me in earthe, in heaven, or yet in hell,
In hill, in dale, or in the fowming floode;
Thrawle, or at large, alive whersoo I dwell,
Sike, or in healthe, in yll fame or in good: