Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves,
That leafy twine his only Dress!
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits
In a moonlight wilderness.
The Moon was bright, the air was free,
And Fruits and Flowers together grew
On many a Shrub and many a Tree:
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a Picture rich and rare.
It was a Climate where, they say,
The Night is more beloved than Day.
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,
That beauteous Boy! to linger here?
Alone, by night, a little child,
In place so silent and so wild—
Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

Notes

* The verse lines were first published in Aids to Reflection (London: Taylor & Hessey,1825), 383. They were inserted to illustrate an allegory in which a pilgrim chances upon an oasis in the form of a garden, "such as in the creations of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos the Child of Cain to have found." The verse lines appear in a footnote; however, the difference to the main text in font size is minimal and therefore this "first stanza" is quite prominent on the page.