All good, save you, were far less dear!
Than is that ill with which I die
Where'er I go, wandering forlorn,
You are the world's love, life, and glee:
Oh, wretchedness not to be borne
If she that's Love should not love me!'

3

I could not write another word,
Through pity for my own distress;
And forth I went, untimely stirr'd
To make my misery more or less.
I went, beneath the heated noon
To where, in her simplicity,
She sate at work; and, as the Moon
On AEtna smiles, she smiled on me.
But, now and then, in cheek and eyes,
I saw, or fancied, such a glow
As when, in summer-evening skies,
Some say, 'It lightens,' some say, 'No.'
'Honoria,' I began--No more.
The Dean, by ill or happy hap,
Came home; and Wolf burst in before,
And put his nose upon her lap.



CANTO VIII.--SARUM PLAIN