To Emma

Since now the hour is come at last, When you must quit your anxious lover; Since now our dream of bliss is past, One pang, my girl, and all is over. Alas! that pang will be severe, Which bids us part to meet no more; Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore. Well! we have pass’d some happy hours, And joy will mingle with our tears; When thinking on these ancient towers, We shelter of our infant years; Where from this Gothic casement’s height, We view’s the lake, the park, the dell, And still, though tears obstruct our sight, We lingering look a last farewell, O’er fields through which we used to run, And spend the hours in childish play; O’er shades where, when our race was done, Reposing on my breast you lay; Whilst I, admiring, too remiss, Forgot to scare the hovering flies, Yet envied every fly the kiss It dared to give your slumbering eyes: See still the little painted bark, In which I row’d you o’er the lake; See there, high waving o’er the park, The elm I clamber’d for your sake. These times are past our joys are gone, You leave me, leave this happy vale; These scenes I must retrace alone: Without thee what will they avail? Who can conceive, who has not proved, The anguish of a last embrace? When, torn from all you fondly loved, You bid a long adieu to peace. This is the deepest of our woes, For this these tears our cheeks bedew; This is of love the final close, Oh, God! the fondest, last adieu!