Edward Gray

First published in 1842 but written in or before 1840. See 'Life', i., 209. Not altered since.

  Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
  Met me walking on yonder way,
  "And have you lost your heart?" she said;
  "And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"
  Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:
  Bitterly weeping I turn'd away:
  "Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
  Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.
  "Ellen Adair she loved me well,
  Against her father's and mother's will:
  To-day I sat for an hour and wept,
  By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.
  "Shy she was, and I thought her cold;
  Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
  Fill'd I was with folly and spite,
  When Ellen Adair was dying for me.
  "Cruel, cruel the words I said!
  Cruelly came they back to-day:
  'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
  'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray'.
  "There I put my face in the grass--
  Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair:
  I repent me of all I did:
  Speak a little, Ellen Adair!'
  "Then I took a pencil, and wrote
  On the mossy stone, as I lay,
  'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
  And here the heart of Edward Gray!'
  "Love may come, and love may go,
  And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:
  But I will love no more, no more,
  Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

  "Bitterly wept I over the stone:
  Bitterly weeping I turn'd away;
  There lies the body of Ellen Adair!
  And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

• About Lord Alfred Tennyson