Nature may bid us look and find:
Though he must guess profoundly well,
Who could th' approaching change foretell.
He long since felt it as a folly
To think again on pretty Molly,
But when his project seem'd to fail,
Her image did again prevail;
And humbler views began to find
A passage to his wav'ring mind.
Instead of striving to pursue
What he now fear'd would never do,
He fancied that a tender wife
Might give a charm to rural life.
Molly he fear'd not he could move
To bless a home with married Love,
And that a cottage might be found,
With garden green and meadow ground;
Where he might form his fragrant bowers,
And deck the pretty lawn with flowers; |
Beneath a beech-tree read his book,
And sometimes angle in the brook:
Nay, even wield a shepherd's crook. | } |
Money he had, and so had she,
And, with a due economy,
Far from the noisy world remov'd,
And by each other fondly lov'd,
They might pass on in plenteous ease,
And lead a life of smiling peace. |
He slept, and, in a dream, he swore,
He saw his Parent-Friend, once more—
Not looking as he did before, | } |
But all so smirking, blithe and gay;
When, sitting on a cock of hay,
The prong and rake he seem'd to wield,
As he were master of the field:
He spoke not, but he seem'd to speak,—
"This is the life, boy, you must seek."
—Such was another strong emotion
To aid the new, romantic notion,
And think of nought but Cottage Life,
With pretty Molly for his Wife.
He turn'd this over in his mind,
And ev'ry hour felt more inclin'd
To take the Maiden by surprize,
And this fond dream to realize. |
Sweet Molly now was gone from town
As waiting-maid to Lady Brown,
Who lives a portion of the year
At her fine place in Devonshire;
Nor did fond Corydon delay
To write his mind another day: