Poor flutt'ring heart, ah! wilt thou ne'er
Thy master's burden learn to bear!
Ah, cruel Mem'ry, why retrace
The angel features of that face!
Those eyes that could a wound impart
More fatal than a foeman's dart,
Which ends at once the painful strife
That he who loves endures through life.

My Mary was the sweetest rose,
That in Love's beauteous garden grows;
Her form, her mien, her soul so pure
Enchanted me beyond all cure:
So graceful, artless, modest, mild,
She ev'ry eye and heart beguil'd;
Yet blush'd to meet th' admiring gaze
Of all who sought to speak her praise.

Through sleepless nights in vain I strove
To quench the flame of ardent love:
In vain I tried to shun her sight, --
To seek my lost repose in flight!
My falt'ring tongue full soon reveal'd
The truth my eyes had ill conceal'd;
And in the bower, at eve's decline,
I trembling ask'd her to be mine.