I'm free from the city's noises now,
And the city cares that bound me;
I chase their shadows off my brow,
'Mid the rural scenes around me.
And alone in the shadowy evening light,
In the deepening gloom and sadness,
I roam the paths of past delight
Of youth's wild dream of gladness.
I see the panorama vast
That to these eyes is giving
The joyous scenes of that dead past
Still in my bosom living.
I call those thoughts and memories back
That stern-faced Toil has banished,
And wander o'er the beaten track
Of happy days long vanished.
The friends of youth for whom I sigh--
The true and tender-hearted;
The happiness of days gone by,
The pleasures long departed:
I see them all again to-night,
They seem to come and linger
Like pictures traced in truest light
By Memory's artist finger.
Those happy times, to me how dear!
Well loved, yet lost for ever;
Those forms that I can fancy near,
Can they return? Ah, never!
Grim Time's dark shadow of decay
Falls on our hopes when brightest;
A cloud may dim our sky of May
When happy hearts beat lightest.
When golden sunbeams softly fall
In light on shrub and flower,
E'en then a storm to blight them all
May in the distance lour!
But still when evening's shadowy light
Steals round in gloom and sadness,
I'll feel a thrill of old delight,
Of youth's wild dream of gladness!