University of Virginia Library

L'EnVoy.

Miami Woods!—The glory of a Dream
Rests on and beautifies the Real now.
What unto me your friendly shades have been,
That will they be forever—even more.
A sorrow common makes a common bond
Where else there would be none. Ye have beheld
My human anguish, and my human joy:
Ye are the friend to whom, in after years,
My heart will oftenest turn, amid its toil,
And sorrow, and dismay: your bosom holds
What unto it was more than words can tell:
But hence my voice is silent in these groves—
I sing no more the beauty and the strength
Here traced in many a green and flowery line,
And standing in the arching majesty
Of temples whose gigantic pillars rest
In the foundations of far centuries:
I sing no more the passion and the pain
That here o'ercame me: the triumphant joy
With which, when last I bade these scenes farewell,
I went upon my way, all starr'd with light,
I sing no more forever. The sweet hope,
That like an angel sat beside my heart
And sang away its sorrow then, hath since
Gone down in desolation. That which was
The central harmony of all this song,
The beautiful young Life that to each swell
And cadence gave the spirit that it hath,
It is no more a bodily presence here,
It is no more of earth; and now the last
Faint strain of this prolonged and fitful lay,
Which but for her, and for the love she bore
These scenes, had known no second touch, must die
Into a murmurous sound—a sigh—a breath.