15.07.2007, 13:04
Could I but harmonize on kindly thought,
Fix one fair image in a snatch of song,
Which maids might warble as they tripped along;
Or could I ease the labouring heart, o’erfrauht
With passionate truths for which the mind untaught
Lacks form and utterance, with a single line;
Might rustic lovers woo in phrase of mine,
I should not deem that I had lived for nought.
The world were welcome to forget my name,
Could I bequeath a few remembered words –
Like his, the bard that never dreamed of fame,
Whose rhymes preserve from harm the pious birds;
Or his, that dim full many a star-bright eye
With woe for Barbara Allen’s cruelty.
Fix one fair image in a snatch of song,
Which maids might warble as they tripped along;
Or could I ease the labouring heart, o’erfrauht
With passionate truths for which the mind untaught
Lacks form and utterance, with a single line;
Might rustic lovers woo in phrase of mine,
I should not deem that I had lived for nought.
The world were welcome to forget my name,
Could I bequeath a few remembered words –
Like his, the bard that never dreamed of fame,
Whose rhymes preserve from harm the pious birds;
Or his, that dim full many a star-bright eye
With woe for Barbara Allen’s cruelty.