Clear and gentle stream! Ere again I go

Where thou dost not flow,

Well does it beseem

Thee to hear again

Once my youthful song,

That familiar strain

Silent now so long:

Be as I content

With my old lament

And my idle dream,
Clear and gentle stream.

B 2

2

ELEGY

THE Wood is bare: a river-mist is steeping
The trees that winter's chill of life bereaves :
Only their stiffened boughs break silence, weeping
Over their fallen leaves;

That lie upon the dank earth brown and rotten,
Miry and matted in the soaking wet :
Forgotten with the spring, that is forgotten
By them that can forget.

Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing, And through the mossy bank shot bud and blade:Here found in summer, when the birds were singing, A green and pleasant shade.

'Twas here we loved in sunnier days and greener; And now, in this disconsolate decay,

I come to see her where I most have seen her,
And touch the happier day.

For on this path, at every turn and corner,
The fancy of her figure on me falls:

Yet walks she with the slow step of a mourner,
Nor hears my voice that calls.

So through my heart there winds a track of feeling,
A path of memory, that is all her own:
Whereto her phantom beauty ever stealing
Haunts the sad spot alone.

About her steps the trunks are bare, the branches
Drip heavy tears upon her downcast head;
And bleed from unseen wounds that no sun staunches,
For the year's sun is dead.

And dead leaves wrap the fruits that summer planted: And birds that love the South have taken wing, The wanderer, loitering o'er the scene enchanted, Weeps, and despairs of spring.

3

POOR withered rose and dry,

Skeleton of a rose,

Risen to testify

To love's sad close:

Treasured for love's sweet sake,

That of joy past

Thou might'st again awake

Memory at last.

Yet is thy perfume sweet;

Thy petals red

Yet tell of summer heat,

And the gay bed:

Yet, yet recall the glow

Of the gazing sun,

When at thy bush we two

Joined hands in one.

But, rose, thou hast not seen,

Thou hast not wept

The change that passed between,
Whilst thou hast slept.

To me thou seemest yet
The dead dream's thrall :

While I live and forget
Dream, truth and all.

Thou art more fresh than I,
Rose, sweet and red:

Salt on my pale cheeks lie

The tears I shed.