O MEMORIES of green and pleasant places, Where happy birds their woodnotes twittered low! O love that lit the dear familiar faces We buried long ago! From barren heights their sweetness we remember, And backward gaze with wistful, yearning eyes, As hearts regret, mid snow-drifts of December, The summer's sunny skies. Glad hours that seemed their rainbow tints to borrow From some illumined page of fairy lore; Bright days that never lacked a bright to-morrow, Days that return no more. Fair gardens, with their many-blossomed alleys, And red, ripe roses breathing out perfume; Deep violet nooks in green, sequestered valleys Empurpled o'er with bloom. Sunset that lighted up the brown-leaved beeches, Turning their dusky glooms to glittering gold; Moonlight that on the river's fern-fringed beaches Streamed white-rayed, silvery cold. O'er moorlands bleak we wander weary-hearted, Through many a tangled, wild, and thorny maze, Remembering as in dreams the days departed, The bygone, happy days. |