I hear the old song with its tender refrain,--
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers
What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain!

The home of my childhood comes back as a vision,--
Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room,--
'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian,--
The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom,--

We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano,--
There were six of us then,--there are two of us now,--
She is singing--the girl with the silver soprano--
How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow;

"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling;
Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled;
"The Exile" laments while the night-dews falling;
"The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old.

But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence!
Around us such raptures celestial they flung
That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence
Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung!

Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted
As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred,
Yet still with their music is memory haunted,
And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard.

I feel like the priest to his altar returning,--