“SWEET maiden mine! thou blushing rose!
Sweet, blushing roselet mine!
For me, what thought of honey flows
From those sweet lips of thine?”
‘I dare not speak with thee, my dear,
My mother has forbid me.’
“Sweet maid! thy mother is not here.”
‘She saw me once, and chid me.
Sir, she is in the garden there,
Plucking the evergreen:—
O may her heart like mine decay,
Like mine decay unseen,—
Ere love’s sweet power has pass’d away,
As it had never been.’