WRITTEN AT MINSTED IN THE NEW FOREST <br /> <br /> <br />O rising Sun! on this auspicious day <br />With brighter beams gild every hill and grove; <br />Ye feather'd songsters, breathe a sweeter lay! <br />And fill the echoing woods with joy and love. <br />And, honor'd Minsted, in thy green retreats <br />Let every tree a prouder foliage wear! <br />Let every floweret scatter livelier sweets, <br />And vernal perfumes scent the autumnal year! <br />Now has the Sun one annual circuit past, <br />Since in thy happy shades these longing arms <br />Receiv'd the choicest blessings man could taste, <br />Maria's virtues, and Maria's charms! <br />Yet witness every lawn, and every shade! <br />So dear a bliss my bosom could not know, <br />When to my breast I clasp'd the yielding maid, <br />As now her wedded fondness can bestow. <br />Let other youths, by vice or folly mov'd, <br />For each new object change their former flame; <br />And blush to own they love what once they lov'd, <br />Lest virtue should approve, and idiots blame. <br />The scorn of fools I ever shall despise; <br />For ever pleas'd, when by my constant side <br />Maria's beauty meets the public eyes, <br />At home my pleasure, and abroad my pride. <br />Where gold, not fondness, guards the nuptial chain, <br />Weak is the parent's will, the lawyer's art: <br />Blaspheming priests those hearts would join in vain, <br />Whom GOD and GOD's vicegerent, Nature, part. <br />But, oh! may we, whose hearts affection join'd, <br />Preserve the blessing till the close of life! <br />She in the husband still the lover find; <br />I still enjoy the mistress in the wife.<br /><br />Henry James Pye<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-viii/
