Lydia Gisborne

On Ouse's grassy banks - last Whitsuntide, I sat, with fears and pleasures, in my soul Commingled, as 'it roamed without control,' O'er present hours and through a future wide Where love, me thought, should keep, my heart beside Her, whose own prison home I looked upon: But, as I looked, descended summer's sun, And did not its descent my hopes deride? The sky though blue was soon to change to grey - I, on that day, next year must own no smile - And as those waves, to Humber far away, Were gliding - so, though that hour might beguile My Hopes, they too, to woe's far deeper sea, Rolled past the shores of Joy's now dim and distant isle.