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^Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter sense of moral grief;^

^Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.^

^ Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!
Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume!
Fresh gales and dews of life’s delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Alas! the little joy to man allowed
Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud;
Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
Whose season was, and cannot be recalled.^

^ When long-familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind?^

^The wood-crowned cliffs that o’er the lake recline;^

cont’d

Who at the call of summer quits his home,
And plods through some wide realm o’er vale and height,^

Descriptive Sketches

^Were there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature’s God that spot to man had given
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam

^ The song of mountain-streams, unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
Air listens, like the sleeping water, still,
To catch the spiritual music of the hill,
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep,^

^ Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the moon’s own morn,
Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer
The weary hills, impervious, blackening near;
Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.^

^—Now o’er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.^

^ Now, with religious awe, the farewell light
Blends with the solemn covering of night,^

^ Even here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs, and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms,
Found by the grassy door of mountain-farms.^

^But now the sun has gained his western road,
And eve’s mild hour invites my steps abroad.^

An Evening Walk

^And hope itself was all I knew of pain^