University of Virginia Library


205

THE STRANGER.

“Is not the scene beautiful?” said the lady.—The tear gathered in the Stranger's eye as he replied—“To you it doubtless appears so—but it recalls to me thoughts of anguish, connected with a similar scene, which destroy its pleasantness.”

Stranger! the word of sadness falls
Like echo in deserted halls,
A sound of mystery, fear and gloom;
In vain the lone heart to beguile,
Bland nature wears her sweetest smile;
Like living flowers upon a tomb,
The beauty all around her spread
But tells of lovelier beauties dead,
And breathes of solitude and doom.
Oh! could we read the thoughts that rise,
While pointing, to the stranger's eyes,

206

Some dear familiar scene we love;—
The smile may glow, the tear may flow,
But not like ours the joy or wo,
That thus the conscious feelings move;
The stream of sympathy will start
From fountain gathered in his heart,
Before the desert world he rove.