Theme of my thought, and beacon to my verse,
Too long thy words have stolen me from thy praise;
Yet now I’ll linger round thee, and rehearse
All that thou wast in past delightful days:
As one, a boy, who leaves his home, his friends,
And thinks he knows them well, sudden discerns
A charm in what seem’d dead, he stops and sends
Message to tree and stone, yet weeps not, turns
Only one parting glance on what, review’d
After few years, heaps quick Eternity
On the bright Past, severing it from the brood
Of the moody Future and the Present’s pity:
So thick, so warm, the thoughts that press my heart,
And goad the gain their frequence fails to impart.