| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Song: ‘Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers’ | | By George Darley (1795–1846) |
| | | SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, | |
| Lull’d by the faint breezes sighing through her hair; | |
| Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers | |
| Breathed to my sad lute ’mid the lonely air. | |
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| Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming | 5 |
| To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above: | |
| O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, | |
| I too could glide to the bower of my love! | |
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| Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her, | |
| Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, | 10 |
| Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, | |
| To her lost mate’s call in the forests far away. | |
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| Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest, | |
| Still Heaven’s messenger of comfort to me— | |
| Come—this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest, | 15 |
| Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee! | | | | |
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