Page:Keepsake 1837.pdf/3



taketh many colours, and weareth many shapes, As from the hidden heart within its lighted life escapes; Stern circumstance is round it, till what in Heaven had birth Seems but an added misery, to this our weary earth.

There were two that loved each other, they were but children then, Companions in the wild wood, and comrades in the glen; The beautiful was round them, and feeling took its tone From the face of lovely Nature, by whose side it had grown.

Within an ancient castle, their childhood had been past, Around whose Gothic turrets like a spirit moan'd the blast, With a voice of many ages, for that castle stood on high When the banner of the red cross flung its sunset o'er the Wye.

The birch copse and the wild flower, the battlements above, The forest's summer darkness, gave its colouring to love; And the poetry indwelling, nay, that is the heart of youth, Was developed in such elements to a diviner truth.

But the boy springs up to manhood, the girl to woman grows, So the sapling gives the oak tree, the bud becomes the rose; Alas! for childhood, leaving its fairy land behind— The green grass dies with summer, so fares it with the mind.