| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Flower of Beauty |
| | | George Darley (1795–1846) |
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| SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, | |
| Lull’d by the faint breezes sighing through her hair; | |
| Sleeps she, and hears not the melancholy numbers | |
| Breath’d to my sad lute amid the lonely air. | |
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| Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming, | 5 |
| To wind round the willow-banks that lure him from above; | |
| O that, in tears from my rocky prison streaming, | |
| I, too, could glide to the bower of my love! | |
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| Ah, where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her, | |
| Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, | 10 |
| Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, | |
| To her lost mate’s call in the forests far away. | |
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| Come, then, my bird! for the peace thou ever bearest, | |
| Still Heaven’s messenger of comfort to me; | |
| Come! this fond bosom, my faithfullest, my fairest, | 15 |
| Bleeds with its death-wound—but deeper yet for thee. | |
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