In vain would I ask of the future to bring
The verdure that gladden’d my life in its spring!
I think of the glen where the hazel-nut grew—
The pine-crowned hill where the heather-bells blew—
The trout-burn which soothed with its murmuring sweet,
The wild flowers that gleamed on the red-deer’s retreat!
I look for the mates full of ardor and truth,
Whose joys, like my own, were the sunbeams of youth—
They passed ere the morning of hope knew its close—
They left me to sleep where our fathers repose!