  Deep in a cell of darkest green, Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom, With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien, A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume, Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh That like the dying echoes of a bell Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily, The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory. So when an old man hears a harvest song He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay, A host of saddened recollections throng The dusty chambers of his heart, and play Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay. (Unfinished.) |
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