LEAVING THE OLD HOME. 257 LEAVING THE OLD HOME. UNWATCH'D, the garden bough shall sway, Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, Is twisting round the polar star; Uncared for, gird the windy grove And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove: Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; Modern Poets. A. Tennyson. 17 258 I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I REMEMBER, I remember, He never came a wink too soon, I remember, I remember, The laburnum on his birth-day,— I remember, I remember, Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow! THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. I remember, I remember, I used to think their slender tops But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Heav'n Than when I was a boy. T. Hood. THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. OFT in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken The eyes that shone, Now dimm'd and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me. 259 260 THE RECOLLECTION. Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Of other days around me. T. Moore. THE RECOLLECTION. Now the last day of many days For now the Earth has changed its face. We wander'd to the Pine Forest The whispering waves were half asleep, It seem'd as if the hour were one We paused amid the pines that stood Tortured by storms to shapes as rude THE RECOLLECTION. And soothed by every azure breath Now all the tree-tops lay asleep How calm it was!-the silence there The breath of peace we drew A spirit interfused around, To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature's strife; And still I felt the centre of The magic circle there Was one fair Form that fill'd with love The lifeless atmosphere. We paused beside the pools that lie Under the forest bough; Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky Gulf'd in a world below; 261 |