Sweet were its notes, and wild their tone;

And pensive there as I paused alone,

They spake with a mystical voice to me,

The sunlight of vanish'd years recalling

From out the mazy past.

I turned to the cloud-bedappled sky,

To bare-shorn field and gleaming water;

To frost-night herbage, and perishing flower;

While the Robin haunted the yellow bower;

With his faery plumage and jet-black eye,