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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Lines Written for the Album at Rosanna

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Rosanna

Lines Written for the Album at Rosanna

By Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)

  • A beautiful place in the county of Wicklow, formerly the abode of the authoress of “Psyche.”


  • O, LIGHTLY tread through these deep chestnut bowers,

    Where a sweet spirit once in beauty moved!

    And touch with reverent hand these leaves and flowers,—

    Fair things, which well a gentle heart hath loved!

    A gentle heart, of love and grief the abode,

    Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flowed.

    And bid its memory sanctify the scene!

    And let the ideal presence of the dead

    Float round, and touch the woods with softer green,

    And o’er the streams a charm, like moonlight, shed,

    Through the soul’s depths in holy silence felt,—

    A spell to raise, to chasten, and to melt!