Over My Cottage

The Pleasures sport beneath the thatch; But Prudence sits upon the watch; Nor Dun nor Doctor lifts the latch!

1799. First published from an MS. in 1893. Suggested by Lessing's Sinngedicht No. 104.

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In the lame and limping metre of a barbarous Latin poet--

Est meum et est tuum, amice! at si amborum nequit esse, Sit meum, amice, precor: quia certe sum mage pauper.

'Tis mine and it is likewise yours; But and if this will not do, Let it be mine, because that I Am the poorer of the Two!

Nov. 1, 1801. First published in the Preface to Christabel, 1816. First collected 1893.

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Names do not always meet with LOVE, And LOVE wants courage without a name.[997:1]

Dec. 1801. Now first published from an MS.

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The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze-- 'Tis there indeed,--but where is it not?-- It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake!

And low and close the broad smooth mountain is more a thing of Heaven than when distinct by one dim shade, and yet undivided from the universal cloud in which it towers infinite in height.

? 1801. First published from an MS. in 1893.

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Such love as mourning Husbands have To her whose Spirit has been newly given To her guardian Saint in Heaven-- Whose Beauty lieth in the grave--

(Unconquered, as if the Soul could find no purer Tabernacle, nor place of sojourn than the virgin Body it had before dwelt in, and wished to stay there till the Resurrection)--

Far liker to a Flower now than when alive, Cold to the Touch and blooming to the eye.

Sept. 1803. Now first published from an MS.

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