Haste to the knotted birchen tree,
And learn the cuckoo’s piety;
There in the green wood will thy mind
A path to heav’n, O lady, find.
There Ovid’s volume shalt thou read,
And there a spotless life we’ll lead—
A life of liberty, where rise
The woodbines o’er the precipice.
Doubt not there too thou may’st be “shriven;”
Full “absolution” may be given;
Nor is it harder to reach heav’n,
For those who make the groves their home,
Than to the sojourners at Rome!
TO DYDDGU.
It would appear from some of the allusions in this poem that Dyddgu was of humble origin.
Thou dear perfect Dyddgu—thou lamp of my heart!
That rulest my thoughts with thy wiles and thy art;
I am none of your lovers who gravely revere
Every nobly-born damsel, as stiff as a spear.
