Love

Song adapted to the new Air in Pleyel’s Grand Concertante

by Anna Seward 1742–1809

From Poetical Works, ed. Walter Scott (1810), vol. I

Love

Bleak gloomy winds will surely rise,
When autumn hastes away;
Ah! so shall swell my rising sighs,
So wintry grow my day.

Lost to my view, when Cloe’s form
No more adorns this shade;
Then, O then, must Sorrow’s storm
My drooping soul invade.

Fast falling tears bedew the ground
When dark November lours,
Nor yet less lavish will be found,
These eyes’ descending showers.

Doom’d when I feel my sick’ning heart
To wail its vanish’d joys;
Now, e’en now, the dreaded smart
My present bliss destroys.

Cease, Fancy, cease the golden prime
Of Love’s delights to veil;
Cease to present the cruel time
When every joy must fail!

Live while we may,--’tis all we can,
And shun the thought that mourns!
Crown with roses life’s short span,
But lean not on their thorns!

✦ ✦ ✦

Source: The Poetical Works of Anna Seward, ed. Walter Scott (Edinburgh: Ballantyne, 1810), vol. I.

MLA

Seward, Anna. “Song adapted to the new Air in Pleyel’s Grand Concertante.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/seward/171/.

Chicago

Seward, Anna. “Song adapted to the new Air in Pleyel’s Grand Concertante.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/seward/171/.

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