University of Virginia Library

Deserted home! 'mongst thy old haunts I stood,
While o'er my heart swept a dim dreary flood
Of thick awakening memories—alas!
Nought now is—nought may more be as it was.
Sad traceries tremble over every leaf
That clusters round these walls! Oh, pain and grief!—
To soothe whose pangs the wildest tears are vain,
And but call forth redoubled grief and pain
In an unanswered heart like mine—oppressed
With aching loneliness—and once how blessed!
Once!—richest, saddest word that e'er was spoken,
By earth's lone fervid hearts, crushed, yet unbroken,
Still clinging to some reed, or weed—some scheme
Which yet hath to depart like every dream!
And this must be Take courage, stricken heart!
The last of thy expectancies shall part,
And Death or Hopelessness shall bring repose,
And long, full respite from consuming woes.
My old, old home! deserted now and drear!—
Thy tapestried chambers still are—O, how dear!
Still in thy walls doth each attesting stone
Seem like a silent seal on hours long gone;
The breath of change with the rich breath of spring
Commingling mournfully, doth brood and cling
To every path and flower around, while sigh,
Breeze-like through all, the powers of memory:
A murmur of lament doth even belong
Unto the free bird's wild and gushing song—
A saddening presence of the past around,
Converts the place to Sorrow's sacred ground.
O, home! 'twas here I wandered free from care,
Here that I breathed pure childhood's tearless prayer,
Here where I lavished all that Childhood's love
And Hope's fair web untremulously wove:
Precious as dews to scorched and heat-bowed flowers,
Fall still the memories of those vernal hours.
'Twas here, with Nature, Heaven, and mine own soul,
I communed yet unconsciously, and stole
Joy, power, emotion, from all earthly things:
Unbubbling, unembittered, then the springs
Of hope and feeling freshened through my being.
Now, hope is flown and life itself is fleeing,
And I fain turn me, faint and weary-hearted,
To those bright hopes dispersed, and joys departed!
O! how my fearless spirit, keen and wild,—
For mighty is the spirit of a child!—
Shot through the heights and depths, the lights and shades,
Of wide imagination. Now it fades—
That power celestial that transmuted all
Earth's dust to gold, or turns its dews to gall!

O that I could be even as I was then!
Now, by such chains as ne'er are loosed again,
Held, darkly bound, and bruised!—and all o'erborne,
E'en by the things I long was wont to scorn—
Chains linked by changes, by blind chances locked;
Opinion, circumstance, on Time's waves rocked.
Well! well! it must be, and shall be sustained!
Oh, heart! how passionately art thou pained—
Crushed 'neath the weight of fallen and cumbering hopes,—
Rich sheaves unbound unto the winds! till droops
The smitten mind within me! Yet be mine,
One path, one star, one rock—Supreme! Divine!
E'en Faith!—sure anchor, guide, and torch, and shield—
And my Heaven-strengthened spirit shall not yield;
This dying heart shall soar above its doom,
Though following all its hopes unto the tomb!
Thus in thy bowery precincts, ancient home,
Lost in the maze of an o'ershadowing gloom,
As 'neath the accustomed tulip-tree I stood,
Sad thoughts swept o'er me in a dreamy flood.