And when the Autumn, in his mellow splendour,
Clothed field and forest in autumnal dyes,
'Twas sweet to wander in the still, weird twilight,
And watch the moon ascend the eastern skies.
Oh! blissful hours! ah, vows so softly spoken,
Ye held a subtle witchery for me;
I dreamed a heart of love and trust unbroken
Was mine—and mine alone—through time to be.
Alas! not mine that blossom that I cherished,
And hoped would bloom through all the coming years;
Death's chill hand fell upon it, and it perished,
And left with me but memory and tears!
Oh, woods! though Autumn left you bare and leafless,
Spring has returned, and brought you life and mirth;
But the dead dream of youth's bright golden morning
Of love and beauty, can it wake to birth?
It cannot be; the times that have departed,
The days of gladness, can return no more;
And I am lonely left and broken-hearted,
Like some sad exile on a foreign shore,—
Who, gazing backwards, through the years can picture
A time when love and friendship were his own;
Then turning to the present, lone and cheerless,
Finds all his happiness in life is gone.
So, now, life's evening shadows, grim and dreary,
In deepest gloom, are round my pathway shed;
The beams of hope are growing dim and weary,
And all that once was bright is cold and dead!
Oh, long-lost love! the gloomy years are fleeting,
Through life's dark dream they ever hurry fast;
Great waves upon the brink of Time they're meeting,
And, mingling, rush to form the shadowy Past!
THE GIFTED.
Say, are the gifted born the sons of woe—
The favoured ones on whom kind Heaven hath smiled,
And dowered so richly with its priceless store;
The lords of earth, the monarchs of the soil—
Men who are bless'd with minds that angels have:
Are these to bear the jibe of vulgar tongues,
To feel the taunts fell Envy madly hurls,
Or brook the scorn gaunt Jealousy may show?
To them such things are but the angry blast
That mars the bosom of the placid lake,
Which smiles in dimpling ripples at its wrath!
They have their "world of flower, and song, and gem,"
The land of beauty where the poet dwells—
His green Parnassus where the muses reign:
Not hidden nor unseen; oh! look abroad,
And tell me if thine eye no beauty sees.
The solemn grandeur of the Autumn woods,
Bright-crimsoned with the dying Summer's blood;
The mountains in their hoary splendour drest,
The valleys with their fields of golden grain,
The glens deep hidden, where a thousand flowers
In modest beauty shun the noontide glare;
The wild-birds' song, the murmur of the streams
That through their heathery banks of fragrance glide.
All these are theirs—their solace, their delight;
Each with its charm of mystic beauty fraught;
The gleams that pierce the clouds of common life,
And let the light of Heaven's own sunshine in!
They have their dreams in twilight's shadowy hour,
When they can strike their golden lyre, and feel
The holy joy the poet calls his own.
And the soft breeze that sings among the boughs
In numbers like the famed Æolian harp
Seems blending with its tones, till earthly cares
Melt, as beneath the syren's spell, and die!