When the young bird goes from her early home,

Though the swift-winged moments in happiness fly,

Though the bridegroom is near with a gentle tone

And a truthful love in his deep dark eye—

Though the future is strewn with the roses of hope,

And peopled with phantoms too brilliant to last—

She turns with a tear to the friends of her youth,

To those who were dear in the past.

The wanderer far, far from kindred and friends,

In fancy revisits his dear native cot;

He views the clear stream where the willow tree bends,

And the cowslips that brighten the spot.

He views the dark wood and the green sloping hill,

The porch, with its graceful white jessamine hung,

The half-open window that looks on the mill,

And the garden where honey-bees hum.

And before him appear, as distinct as of yore,

His mother’s soft eye, and his sire’s furrowed brow;

His Mary’s light form, as when last on the shore

He bade her remember her vow;

His sister’s long hair, with its sunshiny gleam,

Like a banner of gold to the summer wind cast—

But one touch of the present dissolves the light dream,

And he sighs for the joys of the past.

Though surrounded with blessings, and favored with all

That God in his bounty bestows,

We revert to the pleasures we ne’er can recall,

And the tear-drop unconsciously flows.

While roving, entranced, ’mid the fairest of scenes.

A cloud o’er our warm glowing hearts will be cast,

If we think of the blossoms, the birds and the streams

That were lovely and loved in the past.

Creator and Father! Oh! teach me to live

With thy precepts divine for my guide,

Oh! let my young bosom thy lessons receive,

And divest it of folly and pride,

That, when this lithe form is decrepit and bent,

When my color is fading, my pulse waning fast—

I can look back with joy to the moments well spent,

And muse with delight on the past.