Thou wert the chord and spirit of my lyre--
Thy love the living voice that breathed--"aspire!"--
That smoothed ambition's steep and toilsome height,
And in its darkest paths was round me, light.
Then, sit thee by me, love, and list the strain,
Which, but for thee, had still neglected lain.
II.
Didst thou e'er mark, within a beauteous vale,
Where sweetest wild-flowers scent the summer gale,
And the blue Tweed, in silver windings, glides,
Kissing the bending branches on its sides,
A snow-white cottage, one that well might seem
A poet's picture of contentment's dream?
Two chestnuts broad and tall embower the spot,
And bend in beauty o'er the peaceful cot;
The creeping ivy clothes its roof with green,
While round the door the perfumed woodbine's seen
Shading a rustic arch; and smiling near,
Like rainbow fragments, blooms a rich parterre;
Grey, naked crags--a steep and pine-clad hill--
A mountain chain and tributary rill--
A distant hamlet and an ancient wood,
Begirt the valley where the cottage stood.
That cottage was a young Enthusiast's home,
Ere blind ambition lured his steps to roam;
He was a wayward, bold, and ardent boy,
At once his parents' grief--their hope and joy.
Men called him Edmund.--Oft his mother wept
Beside the couch where yet her schoolboy slept,
As, starting in his slumbers, he would seem
To speak of things of which none else might dream.
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