Through the gloom that wraps the earth-tired soul, that
drifts on life's sea apart,
Missing the clasp of a kindred hand, or thrill of heart to
heart.
Alone! alone! on the wide, wide world, where hope can console
no more;
Alone! alone! on the friendless waste, strange, on a stranger
shore.

Oft times when the gloaming gathers round, and the night wind
moans on the hill
Like a ghostly voice from the buried dead, when all around is
still,
In the midnight darkness and silence, I call through the mist
and maze,
To the sunny joys of the glad, bright dream, of the golden,
bygone days.

Then the poem of the wakened long-ago, to the music of memory
flows,
Now filled as with bridal gladness, now wailing out dirge-
like woes;
Through sunshine and summer glories, through brightness and
fragrant blooms,
Through howling storms, 'neath winter skies, through weeping
and murky glooms.

And then, when the weird strain ceases, and the fitful music
is done,
The pictures I love to gaze on, rise slowly, one by one