| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | II. Retirement | | By Henry Kirke White (1785–1806) |
| | | GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild, | |
| Where, far from cities, I may spend my days, | |
| And, by the beauties of the scene beguiled, | |
| May pity man’s pursuits, and shun his ways. | |
| While on the rock I mark the browsing goat, | 5 |
| List to the mountain-torrent’s distant noise, | |
| Or the hoarse bittern’s solitary note, | |
| I shall not want the world’s delusive joys; | |
| But with my little scrip, my book, my lyre, | |
| Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more; | 10 |
| And, when, with time, shall wane the vital fire, | |
| I ’ll raise my pillow on the desert shore, | |
| And lay me down to rest where the wild wave | |
| Shall make sweet music o’er my lonely grave. | | | | |
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