A dream of love, too short, but ah, how dear!
Hath fled and left me sad and desolate.
Oft from my lids I dash the silent tear
And mourn as mourns the wood-dove for her mate,
Who on some branch of thunder-stricken oak
Wastes in complainings tremulous and low
Her gentle soul away. The charm is broke,
Which link’d me erst to joy. With pensive brow,
At midnight hour beneath the ruined pile,
Musing o’er change my vigil lone I keep,—
While streaming faint aslant the shattered aisle,
Soft on its moss the pillowed moonbeams sleep,
Or trim the flickering lamp and eager pore
On bard or sage in Hellas famed of yore.