In woods and glens I love to roam, When the tired hedger hies him home; Or by the woodland pool to rest, When pale the star looks on its breast. Yet when the silent evening sighs, With hallow'd airs and symphonies, My spirit takes another tone, And sighs that it is all alone. The autumn leaf is sere and dead, It floats upon the water's bed; I would not be a leaf, to die Without recording sorrow's sigh! The woods and winds, with sullen wail, Tell all the same unvaried tale; I've none to smile when I am free, And when I sigh, to sigh with me. Yet in my dreams a form I view, That thinks on me, and loves me too; I start, and when the vision's flown, I weep that I am all alone. If far from me the Fates remove Domestic peace, connubial love, The prattling ring, the social cheer, Affection's voice, affection's tear, Ye sterner powers, that bind the heart, To me your iron aid impart! O teach me when the nights are chill, And my fireside is lone and still; When to the blaze that crackles near, I turn a tired and pensive ear, And Nature conquering bids me sigh For love's soft accents whispering nigh; O teach me, on that heavenly road, That leads to Truth's occult abode, To wrap my soul in dreams sublime, Till earth and care no more be mine. Let bless'd Philosophy impart Her soothing measures to my heart; And while with Plato's ravish'd ears I list the music of the spheres, Or on the mystic symbols pore, That hide the Chald's sublimer lore, I shall not brood on summers gone, Nor think that I am all alone. Fanny! upon thy breast I may not lie! Fanny! thou dost not hear me when I speak! Where art thou, love?--Around I turn my eye, And as I turn, the tear is on my cheek. Was it a dream? or did my love behold Indeed my lonely couch?--Methought the breath Fann'd not her bloodless lip; her eye was cold And hollow, and the livery of death Invested her pale forehead. Sainted maid! My thoughts oft rest with thee in thy cold grave, Through the long wintry night, when wind and wave Rock the dark house where thy poor head is laid. Yet, hush! my fond heart, hush! there is a shore Of better promise; and I know at last, When the long sabbath of the tomb is past, We two shall meet in Christ--to part no more. FRAGMENTS.[1] Saw'st thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and paused: Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream That skirts the woods it for a moment play'd. Again, more light it gleam'd,--or does some sprite Delude mine eyes with shapes of wood and streams, And lamp far beaming through the thicket's gloom, As from some bosom'd cabin, where the voice Of revelry, or thrifty watchfulness, Keeps in the lights at this unwonted hour? No sprite deludes mine eyes,--the beam now glows With steady lustre.--Can it be the moon Who, hidden long by the invidious veil That blots the Heavens, now sets behind the woods? No moon to-night has look'd upon the sea Of clouds beneath her, answer'd Rudiger, She has been sleeping with Endymion.