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,
Like an unlaid ghost some scene of slaughter:
All mournful was the sight.

Then I thought of seasons, when, long ago,
Ere Hope's clear sky was dimm'd by sorrow,
How bright seem'd the flowers, and the trees how green,
How lengthen'd the blue summer days had been;
And what pure delight the young spirit's glow,
From the bosom of earth and air, could borrow
Out of all lovely things.

Then my heart leapt to days, when, a careless boy,
'Mid scenes of ambrosial Autumn roaming,
The diamond gem of the Evening Star,
Twinkling amid the pure South afar,
Was gazed on with gushes of holy joy,
As the cherub spirit that ruled the gloaming
With glittering, golden eye.