At a lonely cross where bye-roads met
        I sat upon a gate;
I saw the sun decline and set,
        And still was fain to wait.

A trotting boy passed up the way
        And roused me from my thought;
I called to him, and showed where lay
        A spot I shyly sought.

"A summer-house fair stands hidden where
        You see the moonlight thrown;
Go, tell me if within it there
        A lady sits alone."

He half demurred, but took the track,
        And silence held the scene;
I saw his figure rambling back;
        I asked him if he had been.

"I went just where you said, but found
        No summer-house was there:
Beyond the slope 'tis all bare ground;
        Nothing stands anywhere.

"A man asked what my brains were worth;
        The house, he said, grew rotten,
And was pulled down before my birth,
        And is almost forgotten!"
My right mind woke, and I stood dumb;
        Forty years' frost and flower
Had fleeted since I'd used to come
        To meet her in that bower.