| |
| SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, | |
| Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; | |
| Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, | |
| With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod; | |
| With those who, scattered far, perchance deplore, | 5 |
| Like me, the happy scenes they knew before: | |
| O, as I trace again thy winding hill, | |
| Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, | |
| Thou drooping elm! beneath whose boughs I lay, | |
| And frequent mused the twilight hours away; | 10 |
| Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, | |
| But ah! without the thoughts which then were mine: | |
| How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, | |
| Invite the bosom to recall the past, | |
| And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, | 15 |
| “Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!” | |
| |
| When fate shall chill, at length, this fevered breast, | |
| And calm its cares and passions into rest, | |
| Oft have I thought, ’t would soothe my dying hour, | |
| If aught may soothe when life resigns her power, | 20 |
| To know some humble grave, some narrow cell, | |
| Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell. | |
| With this fond dream, methinks, ’t were sweet to die— | |
| And here it lingered, here my heart might lie; | |
| Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose; | 25 |
| Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; | |
| Forever stretched beneath this mantling shade, | |
| Pressed by the turf where once my childhood played, | |
| Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved, | |
| Mixed with the earth o’er which my footsteps moved: | 30 |
| Blest by the tongues that charmed my youthful ear, | |
| Mourned by the few my soul acknowledged here; | |
| Deplored by those in early days allied, | |
| And unremembered by the world beside. | |
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