O my earliest love, who, ere I number’d
Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill!
Will a swallow—or a swift, or some bird—
Fly to her and say, I love her still?
Say my life’s a desert drear and arid,
To its one green spot I aye recur:
Never, never—although three times married—
Have I cared a jot for aught but her.
No, mine-own! though early forced to leave you,
Still my heart was there where first we met;