YE come again! Dim visions of the past!
That charmed in life's young morn these weary eyes.
Shall I essay this time to hold ye fast ?
Still clings my heart to empty fantasies?
Ye throng around! Well! Be your glamour cast
Upon me, as from shadowy mist ye rise!
Youth trembles through me, while I breathe again
The magic airs that whisper round your train.
Ye bring with ye the forms of happier days,
And many dearest shadows rise to view;
Like tones of old and half-remembered lays,
Come early Love, and Friendship tried and true:
Thought wanders back through Life's bewildering maze,
The passion and the plaint burst forth anew,
And call the Good, who, by injurious Time
Of fair hours cheated, perished ere their prime.
They cannot hear this last and ripest song,
The souls to whom I sang my opening lay;
Dispersed and vanished is the friendly throng;
Th' applauding echoes sadly died away.
To strangers now these later notes belong,
Whose very praises this sad heart dismay;
And those who heard my strain with joy and pride,
If yet they live, are scattered far and wide.