My only guide, a brook whose joyous song,
Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among,
Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray—
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.
And looking back to that all-gladdening morn,
When I was free and sportive as the stream—
When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream—
While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam,