Now the charms of gold, Through the forests wild, If the damsel smiled All their wanderings dreary Now one day's caprice Weighs down years of smiling, I CLXII. LOVE AND AGE. PLAYED with you 'mid cowslips blowing, When I was six and you were four ; When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing, Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather, We wandered hand in hand together ; But that was sixty years ago. You grew a lovely roseate maiden, And still our early love was strong; Still with no care our days were laden, And I did love you very dearly, How dearly words want power to show ; I thought your heart was touched as nearly ;- Then other lovers came around you, I saw you then, first vows forsaking, On rank and wealth your hand bestow ; Oh! then I thought my heart was breaking;— But that was forty years ago. And I lived on, to wed another : ; You grew a matron plump and comely, No merrier eyes have ever glistened Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow, Than when my youngest child was christened,— But that was twenty years ago. Time passed. My eldest girl was married, And I am now a grandsire gray; One pet of four years old I've carried Among the wild-flowered meads to play. In our old fields of childish pleasure, Where now, as then, the cowslips blow, But though first love's impassioned blindness I still have thought of you with kindness, Will bring a time we shall not know, When our young days of gathering flowers Will be an hundred years ago. CLXIII. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, 1788-1824 S' HE walks in beauty, like the night Meet in her aspect and her eyes: One shade the more, one ray the less, Or softly lightens o'er her face; And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, |