Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom, For sportive youth to stray in; For manhood to enjoy his strength; And age to wear away in! 60 Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, A covert for protection Of tender thoughts, that nestle there-- The brood of chaste affection.[38a] How sweet, on this autumnal day, 65 The wild-wood[39] fruits to gather, And on my True-love's forehead plant A crest of blooming heather! And what if I enwreathed my own! 'Twere no offence to reason; 70 The sober Hills thus deck their brows To meet the wintry season. I see--but not by sight alone, Loved Yarrow, have I won thee; A ray of fancy still survives-- 75 Her sunshine plays upon thee! Thy ever-youthful waters keep A course of lively pleasure; And gladsome notes my lips can breathe, Accordant to the measure. 80 The vapours linger round the Heights, They melt, and soon must vanish; One hour is theirs, nor more is mine-- Sad thought, which I would banish, But that I know, where'er I go, 85 Thy genuine image, Yarrow! Will dwell with me--to heighten joy, And cheer my mind in sorrow. Compare _Yarrow Unvisited_, vol. ii. p. 411; also _Yarrow Revisited_, composed in 1831; and Principal Shairp's Essay entitled "The Three Yarrows," in his _Aspects of Poetry_. "I meant to mention _Yarrow Visited_, with that stanza, 'But thou, that didst appear so fair'; than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry;--yet the poem, on the whole, seems condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the most delicate manner, to make you, and _scarce make you_, feel it. Else, it is far superior to the other,[R] which has but one exquisite verse in it, the last but one, or the last two: this is all fine, except perhaps that _that_ of 'studious ease, and generous cares,' has a little tinge of the _less romantic_ about it." Charles Lamb to Wordsworth, in 1815. (See _The Letters of Charles Lamb_, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 286.)--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 36: 1815. Of which so long I cherished, A Fancy dear to waking thought. MS. 1814. ] [Footnote 37: 1815. ... words ... MS. 1814. ] [Footnote 38: 1815. With her own depths ... MS. 1814. ] [Footnote 38a: 1827. It promises protection To studious ease, and generous cares, And every chaste affection. 1815.