Early Love

The Spring of life is o'er with me,      And love and all gone by;      Like broken bough upon yon tree,      I'm left to fade and die.      Stern ruin seized my home and me,      And desolate's my cot:      Ruins of halls, the blasted tree,      Are emblems of my lot.      I lived and loved, I woo'd and won,      Her love was all to me,      But blight fell o'er that youthful one,      And like a blasted tree      I withered, till I all forgot      But Mary's smile on me;      She never lived where love was not,      And I from bonds was free.      The Spring it clothed the fields with pride,      When first we met together;      And then unknown to all beside      We loved in sunny weather;      We met where oaks grew overhead,      And whitethorns hung with may;      Wild thyme beneath her feet was spread,      And cows in quiet lay.      I thought her face was sweeter far      Than aught I'd seen before--      As simple as the cowslips are      Upon the rushy moor:      She seemed the muse of that sweet spot,      The lady of the plain,      And all was dull where she was not,      Till we met there again.