| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | Song: ‘How hardly I concealed my tears’ | | By Anne Wharton (1632?–1685) |
| | | HOW hardly I concealed my tears, | |
| How oft did I complain! | |
| When, many tedious days, my fears | |
| Told me I loved in vain. | |
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| But now my joys as wild are grown, | 5 |
| And hard to be concealed; | |
| Sorrow may make a silent moan, | |
| But joy will be revealed. | |
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| I tell it to the bleating flocks, | |
| To every stream and tree; | 10 |
| And bless the hollow murmuring rocks | |
| For echoing back to me. | |
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| Thus you may see with how much joy | |
| We want, we wish, believe; | |
| ’Tis hard such passion to destroy, | 15 |
| But easy to deceive. | | | | |
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