The Bower of the Wild

I form'd a green bower by the rill o' yon glen,
Afar from the din and the dwellings of men;
Where still I might linger in many a dream,
And mingle my strains wi' the voice o' the stream.
From the cave and the cliff, where the hill foxes roam,
Where the earn has his nest and the raven his home,
I brought the young flower-buds ere yet they had smiled,
And taught them to bloom round my bower of the wild.

But the fair maidens came, from yon vale far away,
And sought my lone grotto still day after day,
And soon were the stems of their fair blossoms shorn
That the flowers of the bard might their ringlets adorn.
Full fair were they all, but the maiden most fair
Would still have no flower till I pull'd it with care;
And gentle, and simple, and modest, and mild,
She stole my lone heart in the bower of the wild.

The summer is past, and the maidens are gone,
And this heart, like my grotto, is wither'd and lone,
And yet, with the winter, I'll cease not to mourn,
Unless, with the blossoms, these fair ones return.
Oh! had they ne'er come, or had ne'er gone away,
I sing in my sorrow still day after day.
The scene seems a desert--the charm is exiled,
And woe to my blooms and my bower of the wild!