  Where are now the gladsome summer, Singing birds whose wild songs thrill, Dark green foliaged waving wildwood, Fragrant glade and rippling rill? And the voice, as soft as angel’s, Of the low caressing wind, As it kisses earth’s warm beauties, Wooing gently and so kind? Where the whisper and the murmur Of the sunlit, dancing sea? The mysterious deep-toned music Of the waves so grand and free? Looking where the isles seem sleeping, GemmÈd on the slumbering flood; On and on through sunlit vistas Fancy free our souls have trod. And the hazy cloudlets floating All the laughing sunlight through, Mirrored on the glorious splendor Of the sky’s infinite blue? Leading up the vaulted highway Of the planets’ centring spheres, Till our souls are lost in wonder ’Mid ecstatic thoughts and fears. Where the dreams we wooed at twilight? Fairest time of all to me; When the silver moon beams softly, And the stars gem earth and sea. Oh, the songs of summer night! Unseen harps in tones of rapture, Thrilling me with strange delight. Ah, to die at close of even, With the heart so strangely glad— Blissful as a dream of heaven— Death could not be drear or sad. Fairest joys the soonest vanish; Summer died but yesterday; Chill and blight of autumn banished All her loveliness away. |
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