Spring has returned, and brought you life and mirth;
But the dead dream of youth's bright golden morning
Of love and beauty, can it wake to birth?

It cannot be; the times that have departed,
The days of gladness, can return no more;
And I am lonely left and broken-hearted,
Like some sad exile on a foreign shore,--

Who, gazing backwards, through the years can picture
A time when love and friendship were his own;
Then turning to the present, lone and cheerless,
Finds all his happiness in life is gone.

So, now, life's evening shadows, grim and dreary,
In deepest gloom, are round my pathway shed;
The beams of hope are growing dim and weary,
And all that once was bright is cold and dead!

Oh, long-lost love! the gloomy years are fleeting,
Through life's dark dream they ever hurry fast;
Great waves upon the brink of Time they're meeting,
And, mingling, rush to form the shadowy Past!




THE GIFTED.