There is a fairy spot, thou knowest it well, By Elva’s stream, in Elva’s deepest dell, Where oaks and larches bend their heads above, And flowering shrubs beneath are thickly wove, While through the boughs, in many a broken beam, Dances the sunlight on the sparkling stream; There, when my guardian’s eyes I can elude, I sometimes steal and sit with solitude; But all too dreadful is the contrast there, Where hope lies tombed and guarded by despair, To the dear joys, all passionate and wild, With which we once the passing hours beguiled. Oh there be times when nature’s every voice, All tuned in one sweet descant, sing, “rejoice!” When rolls the sun refulgently away, And strives the red moon with the dying day, When golden tints and misty gleams of snow Have met and mingled in the vale below, When winds and waters, sweetly toned and clear, In melting murmurs strike the raptured ear; The rippling sound by waving branches made, The varying cadence of the far cascade, Now high, now low, as sweeps the breeze along, Now calmly faint, now tremulously strong; There is a spirit thrills the sense, the soul, Till the full heart spurns reason’s cold control, Steeps anxious care and coward fear in sleep, And melts the bosom into raptures deep! Such have we known full oft in that lone dell, How dear—how dear—the thought—our hearts can tell! . . . . . . . . . . . Like a green island, poised on ocean’s brim, Seem these last scenes in distance faint and dim; The swift, deep gulf my helmless bark floats o’er Still bears me further from that lovely shore; I stretch my arms, I shriek, but dark and strong Rolls the wild flood of destiny along— Oh, there are hours of rapture buried there That envying angels might have longed to share! Dear hours of love! delusive if thou wilt, But wild with passion—stained perchance with guilt; Yet would I peril for such joys again, Life—time—eternity—but all is vain! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Farewell! I ask thee not if day by day Thy heart hath cast its young romance away; I could not doubt thy truth—I ask thee not If Clara’s image be at last forgot; O! love like ours, impetuous, wild and high, Drinks at one draught the spirit’s fountains dry! Farewell!—it chills my blood that lonely word; My heart is sinking like a wounded bird; The sky that once with gladness lit my life Is dull with gloom and desolate with strife, Yet still, methinks, there dimly shines afar, Through the rent clouds, one little lonely star— The star of Hope. I suffer not in vain If life return thee to my arms again. ——