Framed by busy Fancy, haunted
By glad visions of delight,--
Morns of light, and sunsets golden,
Dreams of legends, grand and olden,
Hopes for future years, withholden
From our youthful, yearning sight.

Past and gone! Ah! vain my sighing,--
Hope's dead leaves are round me lying,
But their fragrances, undying,
Like a hallowed incense rise;
And I feel, with joy unspoken,
That the spirit love unbroken
Leaves this Memory for a token
Of its truth, that never dies.

In that land whose beauty vernal
Through tried ages blooms eternal
Thou, in bliss undreamed, supernal
Baskest in the glory-light
Where celestial joys inspire
All heaven's vast, unnumbered choir
With sweet songs that never tire,
Through the fadeless summer bright.

Here, how sad this dreary roaming,
Through the shadows of earth's gloaming,
Waiting for the longed-for coming
Of the lingering Morning Star;
But swift time is onward fleeting--