Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

James Thomson (1700–1748)

To Her I Love

TELL me, thou soul of her I love,

Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;

To what delightful world above,

Appointed for the happy dead?

Or dost thou, free, at pleasure, roam

And sometimes share thy lover’s woe;

Where, void of thee, his cheerless home

Can now, alas! no comfort know?

Oh! if thou hoverest round my walk,

While, under every well-known tree,

I to thy fancied shadow talk,

And every tear is full of thee;

Should then the weary eye of grief,

Beside some sympathetic stream,

In slumber find a short relief,

Oh! visit thou my soothing dream!