Whence come, my soul, these gloomy dreams,
That darken thus my waking hours?
And whence this blighting cloud, that seems
To wither all thy better powers?
What is this cankering worm that clings
Around my heart with deadly strain,
That o'er my thoughts its mildew flings,
And makes my life one age of pain?
I find no joy in home or friends--
E'en music's voice has lost its spell--
To me the rose no perfume lends,
And mirth and I have said farewell.
I dare not think upon the past,
Where dwells remembrance, fraught with pain;
Of youth's pure joys that could not last,
And hopes I ne'er shall know again.
I dare not ask the coming years
What gifts their onward flight shall bring;
For what but grief, and shame, and tears,
From wasted time and powers can spring?
Yet I can deck my cheek with smiles,
And teach my heart to seem to glow,
Though colder than those Northern isles
Of ice and everlasting snow.
Upon the frozen surface there,
With tenfold light the sunbeams play--
But false the dazzling gleam as fair--
No verdure springs beneath the ray.
And falser yet the laughing eye--
The cheek that wears a seeming smile--
The heart that hides its misery,
And breaks beneath its load the while.