Page:National Lyrics.pdf/30

14

"I see the laurels fling back showers       Of soft light still on many a shrine;    I see the path to haunts of flowers Through the dim olives lead its gleaming line; I hear a sound of flutes—a swell of song— Mine is too low to reach that joyous throng!

"Oh! linger, linger on the oar       Beneath my native sky!    Let my life part from that bright shore With Day's last crimson—gazing let me die! Thou bark, glide slowly!—slowly should be borne The voyager that never shall return.

"A fatal gift hath been thy dower,       Lord of the Lyre! to me;    With song and wreath from bower to bower, Sisters went bounding like young Oreads free; While I, through long, lone, voiceless hours apart, Have lain and listened to my beating heart.