University of Virginia Library

MORAL CHANGE.

Darkness is gathering round me, but the stars,
Silent and unobtrusive, stealing out,
Lend beauty to the night. The air comes cool
Up from the fountain; and the murmuring breeze,
Gushing through yonder valley, has a song
Spelling the silence to such mystery
As mingles with our dreams. It is the hour
When sad, sweet thoughts have sway;—when memory,
Triumphant o'er the past, waves her green wand,
And bids the clouds roll back, and lifts the veil
That had been closed behind us as a wall,—
And the eye sees, and the heart feels, and lives
Once more in its old feelings. I retrace
The homes of past affections, and dear hopes,
And dreams that look'd like hopes, and fled as well.
This is the spot—I know it as of old
By various tokens, but 'tis sadly changed.—
Men look not as they did; and flowers that grew,
Nursed by some twin affections, grow alone,
Pining for old attendance. Thus, our change
Brings a worse change on nature. She will bloom
To bless a kindred spirit; but she flies
The home that yields no worship. She is seen
Through the sweet medium of our sympathies,
And has no life beside. 'Tis in our eye
Alone that she is lovely—'tis our thought
That makes her dear, as only in our ears
Lies the young minstrel's music, which were harsh,
Did not our mood yield up fit instrument
For his congenial fingers.
It is thus,—
The beautiful evening, the secluded vale,
The murmuring breeze, the gushing fountain, all
So exquisite in nature to the sense,
So cheering to the spirit—bring me naught
But shadows of a gloomy thought that rise
With the dusk memory—with repeated tales,
Censuring the erring heart-hope with its loss:—
Loss upon loss—the dark defeat of all
The pleasant plans of boyhood—promises
That might have grown in fairy land to flowers,
And were but weeds in this. They did but wound,
Or cheat and vanish with deluding glare:
Having the aspect of some heavenly joy,
They also had its wings, and, tired of earth,
Replumed them back for the more natural clime,
And so were lost to ours. Hopes still wrong
And torture, when they grow extravagant—
Youth is their victim ever, for they grow,
With the advancing seasons, into foes
That wolve upon him. 'Tis a grief to me,
Though a strange pleasure still, thus to look forth,
Watching, through lengthening hours, so sweet a scene,
And winning back old feelings as I gaze.
Boyhood had drawn a picture fair like this
On fancy's vision. Ancient oaks were there,
Giving the landscape due solemnity—
A quiet streamlet trickled through a grove,
And the birds sang most sweetly in the trees—
But then the picture was not incomplete,
Nor I alone, as now.