Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

100

Are we not exiles here?
Come there not o'er us memories of a clime
More genial and more dear
Than this of time?

When deep, vague wishes press
Upon the soul and prompt it to aspire,
A mystic loneliness,
And wild desire;

When our long-baffled zeal
Turns back, in mockery, on the weary heart,
Till at the sad appeal,
Dismayed we start;

And like the Deluge dove,
Outflown upon the world's cold sea we lie,
And all our dreams of love
In anguish die:

101

Nature no more endears,
Her blissful strains seem only breathed afar,
Nor mount, nor flower cheers,
Nor smiling star:

Familiar things grow strange,
Fond hopes, like tendrils shooting to the air,
Through friendless being range,
To meet despair:

And nursed by secret tears,
Rich but frail visions in the heart have birth,
And this fair world appears
A homeless earth!

Then must we summon back
Blest guides who long ago have met the strife,
And left a radiant track
To mark their life;

Then must we look around
On heroes' deeds—the landmarks of the brave,
And hear their cheers resound
From off the wave;

102

Then must we turn from show,
Pleasure and fame, the phantom race of care,
And let our spirits flow
In earnest prayer!