Sonnet. to the River Usk, in Monmouthshire

Oh, stream belov'd! within whose gelid caves, The Naïads sport the fervid noontide hour! What bliss was mine, when in my native bow'r, I sung my simple sonnet to thy waves! Thy rocks romantic, and thy woods sublime, Where erst the Druid watch'd the sacred oak, And the rapt bard his lyre prophetic struck, Fill'd the rough cadence of my artless rhyme. When vernal suns dissolv'd the mountain snow, And all the Nymphs were frighted from thy shore, I lov'd to see thy flood, majestic flow, And hear thy bold resistless current roar.

But now!—far from thy banks, I hapless rove, The slave of fair MELISSA and of Love!