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| WHEN, at morn, the muleteer | |
| With early call announces day, | |
| Sorrowing that early call I hear, | |
| Which scares the visions of delight away; | |
| For dear to me the silent hour | 5 |
| When sleep exerts its wizard power, | |
| And busy Fancy, then let free, | |
| Borne on the wings of Hope, my Edith, flies to thee. | |
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| When the slant sunbeams crest | |
| The mountain’s shadowy breast; | 10 |
| When on the upland slope | |
| Shines the green myrtle wet with morning dew, | |
| And, lovely as the youthful dreams of Hope, | |
| The dim-seen landscape opens on the view,— | |
| I gaze around, with raptured eyes, | 15 |
| On Nature’s charms, where no illusion lies, | |
| And drop the joy and memory-mingled tear, | |
| And sigh to think that Edith is not here. | |
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| At the cool hour of even, | |
| When all is calm and still, | 20 |
| And o’er the western hill | |
| A richer radiance robes the mellowed heaven, | |
| Absorbed in darkness thence, | |
| When slowly fades in night | |
| The dim, decaying light, | 25 |
| Like the fair day-dreams of Benevolence, | |
| Fatigued and sad and slow, | |
| Along my lonely way I go, | |
| And muse upon the distant day, | |
| And sigh, remembering Edith far away. | 30 |
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| When late arriving at our inn of rest, | |
| Whose roof, exposed to many a winter’s sky, | |
| Half shelters from the wind the shivering guest, | |
| By the lamp’s melancholy gloom, | |
| I see the miserable room, | 35 |
| And, musing on the evils that arise | |
| From disproportioned inequalities, | |
| Pray that my lot may be | |
| Neither with riches nor with poverty, | |
| But in that happy mean | 40 |
| Which for the soul is best, | |
| And with contentment blest, | |
| In some secluded glen | |
| To dwell with peace and Edith far from men. | |
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