If by my childhood's humble home
I chance to wander now,
Or through the grove with brambles grown,
Where cedars used to bow,
In search of something that I loved--
Some little trifling thing
To mind me of my early days,
When life was in its spring,--
I find on every thing I see
A something new and strange;
Time's iron hand on them and me
Hath plainly written--_Change_.
My pulse beats slower than it did
When childhood's glow was on
My cheek, and colder, calmer now
Doth life's red current run.
The stars I gaz'd with rapture on,
When youthful hopes were high,
With sterner years have seem'd to change
Their places in the sky.
And moonlit nights are plenty now--
How few they used to be!
When, with my little urchin crew,
I shouted o'er the lea.
I've sought the places where we play'd
Our boyish "_hide and call_;"
Alas! the tyrant Change has made
A common stock of all--
And bartered for a place of graves
That lea and all its bloom:
O, how upon the walls I wept,
To think of Change and Doom!
The lovely lawn where roses grew,
Is strewn with gravestones o'er;
And half my little playmate crew
Have slept to wake no more
Till Change itself shall cease to be,
And one successive scene
Of stedfastness immutable
Remain where Change hath been.
It may sometimes make old men glad
To see the young at play;
But always doth my soul grow sad
When thoughts of their decay
Come rushing with the memories
Of what my own hopes were--
When Hudson's waters and my youth
Did mutual friendship share.