Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/409



mist on a mountain top broken and gray, The dream of my early day fleeted away: Now the evening of life, with its shadows, steals on, And memory reposes on years that are gone!

Wild youth with strange fruitage of errors and tears— A midday of bliss and a midnight of fears— Though chequer'd, and sad, and mistaken you've been, Still love I to muse on the hours we have seen!

With those long-vanished hours fair visions are flown, And the soul of the minstrel sinks pensive and lone; In vain would I ask of the future to bring The verdure that gladden'd my life in its spring!

I think of the glen where the hazel-nut grew— The pine-covered hill where the heather-bell blew—