Fair Dove and Darwen clear, Boast ye your beauties, To Trent your mistress here Yet pay your duties: My Love was higher born Tow'rds the full fountains, Yet she doth moorland scorn And the Peak mountains; Nor would she none should dream Where she abideth, Humble as is the stream Which by her slideth. On thy bank . . .
Yet my poor rustic Muse
Nothing can move her,
Nor the means I can use,
Though her true lover:
Many a long winter's night
Have I waked for her,
Yet this my piteous plight
Nothing can stir her.
All thy sands, silver Trent,
Down to the Humber,
The sighs that I have spent
Never can number.
On thy bank,
In a rank,
Let thy swans sing her,
And with their music
Along let them bring her.
Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/192
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