To A Bower.

Three times, sweet hawthorn! I have met thy bower,     And thou hast gain'd my love, and I do feel     An aching pain to leave thee: every flower     Around thee opening doth new charms reveal,     And binds my fondness stronger.--Wild wood bower,     In memory's calendar thou'rt treasur'd up:     And should we meet in some remoter hour,     When all thy bloom to winter-winds shall droop;     Ah, in life's winter, many a day to come,     Should my grey wrinkles pass thy spot of ground,     And find it bare--with thee no longer crown'd;     Within the woodman's faggot torn from hence,     Or chopt by hedgers up for yonder fence;     Ah, should I chance by thee as then to come,     I'll look upon thy nakedness with pain,     And, as I view thy desolated doom,     In fancy's eye I'll fetch thy shade again:     And of this lovely day I'll think and sigh,     And ponder o'er this sweetly-passing hour,     And feel as then the throes of joys gone by,     When I was young, and thou a blooming bower.