Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Charles Wolfe (1791–1823)

Song: ‘O say not that my heart is cold’

O SAY not that my heart is cold

To aught that once could warm it;

That Nature’s form, so dear of old,

No more has power to charm it;

Or that the ungenerous world can chill

One glow of fond emotion

For those who made it dearer still,

And shared my wild devotion.

Still oft those solemn scenes I view

In rapt and dreamy sadness;

Oft look on those who loved them too

With Fancy’s idle gladness;

Again I longed to view the light

In Nature’s features glowing,

Again to tread the mountain’s height,

And taste the soul’s o’erflowing.

Stern Duty rose, and frowning flung

His leaden chain around me;

With iron look and sullen tongue

He muttered as he bound me:

‘The mountain breeze, the boundless heaven,

Unfit for toil the creature;

These for the free alone were given,—

But what have slaves with Nature?’