Part I
Caroline. —
I’ll bid the hyacinth to blow,
I’ll teach my grotto green to be;
And sing my true love all below
The holly bower and myrtle tree.
There all his wild-wood sweets to bring,
The sweet South wind shall wander by,
And with the music of his wing
Delight my rustling canopy.
Come to my close and clustering bower
Thou spirit of a milder clime,
Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower,
Of mountain heath, and moory thyme.
With all thy rural echoes come,
Sweet comrade of the rosy day,
Wafting the wild bee’s gentle hum,
Or cuckoo’s plaintive roundelay.
Where’er thy morning breath has played,
Whatever isles of ocean fanned,
Come to my blossom-woven shade,
Thou wandering wind of fairy-land.
For sure from some enchanted isle,
Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold,
Where pure and happy spirits smile,
Of beauty’s fairest, brightest mould:
From some green Eden of the deep,
Where Pleasure’s sigh alone is heaved,
Where tears of rapture lovers weep,
Endeared, undoubting, undeceived;
From some sweet paradise afar,
Thy music wanders, distant, lost—
Where Nature lights her leading star,
And love is never, never crossed.
Oh gentle gale of Eden bowers,
If back thy rosy feet should roam,
To revel with the cloudless Hours
In Nature’s more propitious home.
Name to thy loved Elysian groves,
That o’er enchanted spirits twine,
A fairer form than cherub loves,
And let the name be Caroline.