Poems and Songs by Alfred Tennyson

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way,
"And have you lost your heart?" she said;
"And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:
Bitterly weeping I turned away:
"Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

"Ellen Adair, she loved me well,
Against her father's and mother's will:
Today I sat for an hour and wept,
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.
Shy she was, and I thought her cold;
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Fill'd I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

"Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back today:
'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'
There I put my face in the grass
Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair:
I repent me of all I did:
Speak a little, speak a little,
Ellen Adair!'

"Then I took a pencil and wrote
On the mossy stone as I lay,
'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
And here the heart of Edward Gray!'

Love may come and love may go,
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:
But I will love no more, no more,
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
"Bitterly wept I over the stone:
Bitterly weeping I turned away:
There lies the body of Ellen Adair;
And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample [round]1 my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:
Go by, go by.