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!