Classic Poem

Gentle maid, consent to be
A rural bride, and dwell with me,
Where the woodland warblers sing
Songs of love, to hail the spring —
Where sweet wild flowers scent the gale
Round my cottage of the vale.

The jess'mine dark with snowy gems,
Scatter'd o'er its bending stems;
And the woodbine's tendrils twine
With the blushing eglantine,
To form a rural bower for thee —
Quit for these thy liberty.

LUCY.

Shepherd, tho' thy song be sweet,
And thy cottage is complete,
Yet, should I consent to be
A rural bride, and dwell with thee,
Shall good-humour still prevail
In thy cottage of the vale?

Say, shall never frowns or strife
Make me rue a married life?
Wilt thou constant be and kind,
And as now to love inclin'd?
Else to me would sweeter be
A single life and liberty.