I had often yearn’d for something
   That would love me, e’en a dumb thing;
But such happiness seem’d always out of reach: 
   Little boys are off like arrows
   With their little spades and barrows,
When they see me bearing down upon the beach;

   And although I’m rather handsome,
   Tiny babes, when I would dance ’em
On my arm, set up so horrible a screech
   That I pitch them to their nurses
   With (I fear me) mutter’d curses,
And resume my lucubrations on the beach.

   And the rabbits won’t come nigh me,
   And the gulls observe and fly me,
And I doubt, upon my honour, if a leech
   Would stick on me as on others,
   And I know if I had brothers
They would cut me when we met upon the beach.

   So at last I bought this trinket. 
   For (although I love to think it)
’Twasn’t given me, with a pretty little speech: 
   No!  I bought it of a pedlar,
   Brown and wizen’d as a medlar,
Who was hawking odds and ends about the beach.

   But I’ve managed, very nearly,
   To believe that I was dearly
Loved by Somebody, who (blushing like a peach)
   Flung it o’er me saying, “Wear it
   For my sake”—­and I declare, it
Seldom strikes me that I bought it on the beach.

   I can see myself revealing
   Unsuspected depths of feeling,
As, in tones that half upbraid and half beseech,
   I aver with what delight I
   Would give anything—­my right eye —
For a souvenir of our stroll upon the beach.

   O! that eye that never glisten’d
   And that voice to which I’ve listen’d
But in fancy, how I dote upon them each! 
   How regardless what o’clock it
   Is, I pore upon that locket
Which does not contain her portrait, on the beach!

   As if something were inside it
   I laboriously hide it,
And a rather pretty sermon you might preach
   Upon Fantasy, selecting
   For your “instance” the affecting
Tale of me and my proceedings on the beach.

   I depict her, ah, how charming! 
   I portray myself alarming
Herby swearing I would “mount the deadly breach,”
   Or engage in any scrimmage
   For a glimpse of her sweet image,
Or her shadow, or her footprint on the beach.

   And I’m ever ever seeing
   My imaginary Being,
And I’d rather that my marrowbones should bleach
   In the winds, than that a cruel
   Fate should snatch from me the jewel
Which I bought for one and sixpence on the beach.

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION.

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
   (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean: 
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
   Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,
   I and my Willie (O love my love): 
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
   And flitterbats waver’d alow, above: