Of autumn, which now hung o’er all
The scene their leaden, dropping pall,
Beneath whose dark gray veils, once more
We hailed our native Albion’s shore,
Our pilgrimage of pleasure o’er.
LINES FOR MUSIC.
Good night! from music’s softest spell
Go to thy dreams: and in thy slumbers,
Fairies, with magic harp and shell,
Sing o’er to thee thy own sweet numbers.
Good night! from Hope’s intense desire
Go to thy dreams: and may to-morrow,
Love with the sun returning, fire
These evening mists of doubt and sorrow.
Good night! from hours of weary waking
I’ll to my dreams: still in my sleep
To feel the spirit’s restless aching,
And ev’n with eyelids closed, to weep.
SONNET.
Say thou not sadly, “never,” and “no more,”
But from thy lips banish those falsest words;
While life remains that which was thine before
Again may be thine; in Time’s storehouse lie
Days, hours, and moments, that have unknown hoards
Of joy, as well as sorrow: passing by,
Smiles, come with tears; therefore with hopeful eye
Look thou on dear things, though they turn away,
For thou and they, perchance, some future day
Shall meet again, and the gone bliss return;
For its departure then make thou no mourn,
But with stout heart bid what thou lov’st farewell;
That which the past hath given the future gives as well.
SONNET.
Though thou return unto the former things,
Fields, woods, and gardens, where thy feet have strayed
In other days, and not a bough, branch, blade
Of tree, or meadow, but the same appears
As when thou lovedst them in former years,
They shall not seem the same; the spirit brings
Change from the inward, though the outward be
E’en as it was, when thou didst weep to see
It last, and spak’st that prophecy of pain,
“Farewell! I shall not look on ye again!”
And so thou never didst—no, though e’en now
Thine eyes behold all they so loved of yore,
The Thou that did behold them then, no more
Lives in this world, it is another Thou.