Once more, once more, my Mary dear,
I sit by that lone stream,
Where first within thy timid ear
I breathed love’s burning dream.
The birds we loved still tell their tale
Of music, on each spray,
And still the wild-rose decks the vale—
But thou art far away.
In vain thy vanished form I seek,
By wood and stream...
Clime of the brave! the high heart’s home,
Laved by the wild and stormy sea!
Thy children, in this far-off land,
Devote to-day their hearts to thee;
Our thoughts, despite of space and time,
To-day are in our native clime,
Where passed our sinless years, and where
Our infant heads first bowed in prayer.
Stern land! we love...
’t Is midnight’s holy hour,—and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o’er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell’s deep tones are swelling,—’t is the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud...
