Alas! that every lovely thing

Hope, frail but lovely shadow ! thou dost come, Like a bright vision on our pathway here, Making the gloomy future beautiful, And gilding our horizon with a light, The fairest human eye can ever know.

Once more my harp awakens ; once again, Tho' all unworthy be my hand to twine Th' etherial blossomings of poetry, I would call forth its numbers, yet would feel Its music fall like sunlight on my soul.

... absence is The moonlight of affection ;

The leaves were gone from all, save where the pine Threw the wide shadow of its unchang'd green. I could not envy it that fadeless state.— Ah ! who would be the last, the only one That ruin spares—no ; if the blight must pass O'er all …

'Tis soothing, oh ! most soothing to the heart, To rove 'mid scenes where once we have been blest! Each tree, each blossom, has a thrilling charm; They seem memorials of those happier hours : The very sigh that tells they are no more, Is …

Methinks adieu Is cold, when uttered with aught else but tears.