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| IN yonder grave a Druid lies, | |
| Where slowly winds the stealing wave; | |
| The year’s best sweets shall duteous rise | |
| To deck its poet’s sylvan grave. | |
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| In yon deep bed of whispering reeds | 5 |
| His airy harp shall now be laid, | |
| That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds, | |
| May love through life the soothing shade. | |
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| Then maids and youths shall linger here, | |
| And while its sounds at distance swell, | 10 |
| Shall sadly seem in Pity’s ear | |
| To hear the woodland pilgrim’s knell. | |
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| Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore | |
| When Thames in summer wreaths is drest, | |
| And oft suspend the dashing oar, | 15 |
| To bid his gentle spirit rest. | |
| |
| And oft, as ease and health retire | |
| To breezy lawn or forest deep, | |
| The friend shall view yon whitening spire, | |
| And mid the varied landscape weep. | 20 |
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| But thou, who own’st that earthy bed, | |
| Ah! what will every dirge avail? | |
| Or tears which love and pity shed, | |
| That mourn beneath the gliding sail? | |
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| Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye | 25 |
| Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near? | |
| With him, sweet bard, may fancy die, | |
| And joy desert the blooming year. | |
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| But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide | |
| No sedge-crowned sisters now attend, | 30 |
| Now waft me from the green hill’s side | |
| Whose cold turf hides the buried friend! | |
| |
| And see the fairy valleys fade; | |
| Dun night has veiled the solemn view! | |
| Yet once again, dear parted shade, | 35 |
| Meek Nature’s child, again adieu! | |
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| Thy genial meads, assigned to bless | |
| Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; | |
| There hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress | |
| With simple hands thy rural tomb. | 40 |
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| Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay | |
| Shall melt the musing Briton’s eyes: | |
| O vales and wild woods, shall he say, | |
| In yonder grave a Druid lies! | |
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