| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Lyre, I | | By George Darley (1795–1846) |
| | | WHEREFORE, unlaurell’d Boy, | |
| Whom the contemptuous Muse will not inspire, | |
| With a sad kind of joy | |
| Still sing’st thou to thy solitary lyre? | |
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| The melancholy winds | 5 |
| Pour through unnumber’d reeds their idle woes, | |
| And every Naiad finds | |
| A stream to weep her sorrow as it flows. | |
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| Her sighs unto the air | |
| The Wood-maid’s native oak doth broadly tell. | 10 |
| And Echo’s fond despair | |
| Intelligible rocks re-syllable. | |
| |
| Wherefore then should not I, | |
| Albeit no haughty Muse my heart inspire, | |
| Fated of grief to die, | 15 |
| Impart it to my solitary lyre? | | | | |
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