At twilight’s soft and gentle hour
When shadows o’er the dull earth creep,
And nature feels the soothing power
Of coming night and balmy sleep—
When the tired laborer hastens home
His wife and little ones to kiss,
And the young beauty anxiously
Awaits love’s hour of dream-like bliss—
When nest-ward hie both bird and bee,
My fondest thought is still for thee!
Again at midnight’s solemn hour,
When eyes are closed and lips are still,
And Silence, like a spirit’s form,
Rests sweetly on each vale and hill,
When Love and Grief sit side by side
Around some sinking sufferer’s bed,
Or Crime in shadow seeks to hide
A form to every virtue dead,—
E’en then in dreams thy form I see,
Or waking fondly turn to thee!
At rosy morn, when like a gleam
From some far brighter sphere than ours,
The sunlight with its golden sheen
Awakes the world and tints the flowers—
When birds their tuneful numbers raise
And chant a welcome to the dawn,
When Nature lifts her voice in praise,
And day, creation-like, is born—
Then, when are hymns from land and sea,
I bow to Heaven and think of thee!
My lonely room—my quiet hours,
No hand to press—no voice to cheer,
No form to meet in Pleasure’s bowers,
No song to melt the soul to tears—
No welcome home with looks of joy,
No gentle song to tell of love,
No day-dreams of our cherished boy,
No child-like eyes to point above—
No hand to soothe the ruffled brow,
Alas! how much I miss thee now!
Pity the wretch, who, doomed to roam
From day to day this lower sphere,
Unloved by any—loving none,
Still wasting on from year to year,
As lonely as some twinkling orb
That trembles in the distant sky,
A watcher mid the hosts of night
With none to share its company—
Unloved while living, and when dead,
With none a heart-wrung tear to shed!
Alas! how cold and desolate
The path of such a one must be,
How dim his hopes—how sad his fate,
How cheerless his lone destiny!
No eye to mark each changing look,
No lip his fever’d brain to press;
No gentle one in whisper low,
With kindly words his ear to bless,—
To point his thoughts from earth to sky,
And paint some bright Futurity!
Why do we live? Affections—ties
That well and form within the breast,
That intertwine our sympathies
With hopes and joys that make us blest—
These point the panting spirit up
To milder realms beyond the skies,
And whisper to the trembling soul
New bliss awaits in paradise!
Oh! what were life with love away,
Where earth its bound—its limit clay!
Then soon return, fond one, return,
Thy greeting shall be kind and true,
Love’s lamp again shall brightly burn,
And life its purest joys renew!
Oh! absence, like the clouds that throw
Thick shadows o’er the summer sky,
But, passing, leave a brighter glow,
A deeper, purer blue on high:
So now I wait the passing gloom,
That light again may gladden home!
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