The lovely young Lavinia once had friends; <br />And fortune smiled deceitful on her birth: <br />For, in her helpless years deprived of all, <br />Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven, <br />She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old, <br />And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired <br />Among the windings of a woody vale; <br />By solitude and deep-surrounding shades, <br />But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd. <br />Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn <br />Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet <br />From giddy passion and low-minded pride; <br />Almost on Nature's common bounty fed, <br />Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, <br />Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare. <br />Her form was fresher than the morning rose, <br />When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd and pure, <br />As is the lily or the mountain snow. <br />The modest virtues mingled in her eyes, <br />Still on the ground dejected, darting all <br />Their humid means into the blooming flowers; <br />Or when the mournful tale her mother told <br />Of what her faithless fortune promised once, <br />Thrill'd in her thought, they like the dewy star <br />Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace <br />Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs, <br />Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire, <br />Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness <br />Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, <br />But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most. <br />Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self, <br />Recluse amid the close-embowering woods: <br />As in the hollow breast of Apennine, <br />Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, <br />A myrtle rises, far from human eye, <br />And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild; <br />So flourish'd, blooming, and unseen by all, <br />The sweet Lavinia.<br /><br />James Thomson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lavinia/
