C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Sir Gilbert Elliot (1722–1777)

MY sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-crook,

And all the gay haunts of my youth I forsook;

No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove:

For ambition, I said, would soon cure me of love.

Oh! what had my youth with ambition to do?

Why left I Amynta? Why broke I my vow?

Oh! give me my sheep, and my sheep-crook restore,

And I’ll wander from love and Amynta no more.

Through regions remote in vain do I rove,

And bid the wide ocean secure me from love!

O fool! to imagine that aught could subdue

A love so well founded, a passion so true!—

Alas! ’tis too late at thy fate to repine:

Poor shepherd, Amynta can never be thine;

Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain,

The moments neglected return not again.