| William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908. | | | | Poems from the Rossetti MS.: Earlier Poems | | In a Myrtle Shade |
| | | WHY 1 should I be bound to thee, | |
| O my lovely Myrtle-tree? | |
| Love, free Love, cannot be bound | |
| To any tree that grows on ground. | |
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| O! how sick and weary I | 5 |
| Underneath my Myrtle lie; | |
| Like to dung upon the ground, | |
| Underneath my Myrtle bound. | |
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| Oft my Myrtle sigh’d in vain | |
| To behold my heavy chain: | 10 |
| Oft my Father saw us sigh, | |
| And laugh’d at our simplicity. | |
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| So I smote him, and his gore | |
| Stain’d the roots my Myrtle bore. | |
| But the time of youth is fled, | 15 |
| And grey hairs are on my head. | |
| | Note 1. In a Myrtle Shade] 5–8 This stanza, an afterthought, marked for insertion in its present position, began with the couplet afterwards deleted:| To a lovely myrtle bound, | | Blossoms show’ring all around. |
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