Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1835.pdf/61

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of rugged rocks, adown whose sides The mountain torrent rushes; on whose crags The raven builds her nest, and tells her young Of former funeral feasts.

years have past since last I stood Alone amid this mountain scene, Unlike the future which I dreamed, How like my future it has been! A cold grey sky o'erhung with clouds, With showers in every passing shade, How like the moral atmosphere Whose gloom my horoscope has made!

I thought if yet my weary feet Could rove my native hills again, A world of feeling would revive, Sweet feelings wasted, worn in vain. My early hopes, my early joys, I dreamed those valleys would restore; I asked for childhood to return, For childhood, which returns no more.

Surely the scene itself is changed! There did not always rest as now That shadow in the valley's depth, That gloom upon the mountain brow. Wild flowers within the chasms dwelt Like treasures in some fairy hold, And morning o'er the mountains shed Her kindling world of vapory gold.

Another season of the year Is now upon the earth and me; Another spring will light these hills— No other spring mine own may be: I must retune my unstrung heart, I must awake the sleeping tomb, I must recall the loved and lost, Ere spring again for me could bloom.