Margaretta.

When I was in my teens,

I loved dear Margaretta:

I know not what it means,

I can not now forget her!

That vision of the past

My head is ever crazing;

Yet, when I saw her last,

I could not speak for gazing!

Oh, lingering bud of May!

Dear as when first I met her;

Worn in my heart always,

Life-cherished Margaretta!

We parted near the stile,

As morn was faintly breaking:

For many a weary mile

Oh how my heart was aching!

But distance, time, and change,

Have lost me Margaretta;

And yet‘ tis sadly strange

That I can not forget her!

O queen of rural maids —

My dark-eyed Magaretta —

The heart the mind upbraids

That struggles to forget her!

My love, I know, will seem

A wayward, boyish folly;

But, ah! it was a dream

Most sweet — most melancholy.

Were mine the world's domain,

To me‘ twere fortune better

To be a boy again,

And dream of Margaretta.

Oh! memory of the past,

Why linger to regret her?

My first love was my last!

And that is Margaretta!