No shadows of sadness

From the sombre background of memory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,

One whom memory oft recalls,

The Father of his Country, dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.

Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;
Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

But what are these grave thoughts to thee?

Out, out! into the open air!

Thy only dream is liberty,

Thou carest little how or where.

I see thee eager at thy play,
Now shouting to the apples on the tr
With cheeks as round and red as the
And now among the yellow stalks,
Among the flowering shrubs and plant
As restless as the bee.

Along the garden walks,

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheel And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes

Above the cavernous and secret homes Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ant Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,

Who, with thy dreadful reign,

Dost persecute and overwhelm

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm

What! tired already! with those supplian And voice more beautiful than a poet's b

Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,
Thou comest back to parley with repose!
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,
With its o'erhanging golden canopy
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,
And shining with the argent light of dews,
Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest,
From which the laughing birds have taken wing,
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam ;

A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.

O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !

Here at the portal thou dost sta And with thy little hand

Thou openest the mysterious gat Into the future's undiscovered la I see its valves expand,

As at the touch of Fate!

Into those realms of love and hate

Into that darkness blank and drea By some prophetic feeling taught, I launch the bold, adventurous tho Freighted with hope and fear;

As

upon subterranean streams,

In caverns unexplored and dark,

Men sometimes launch a fragile bar Laden with flickering fire,

And watch its swift-receding beams, Until at length they disappear,

And in the distant dark expire.

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!

Like the new moon thy life

A little strip of silver light,

appears;

And widening outward into night
The shadowy disk of future years;
And yet upon its outer rim,

A luminous circle, faint and dim,

And scarcely visible to us here,

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere;
A prophecy and intimation,

A pale and feeble adumbration,

Of the great world of light, that lies
Behind all human destinies.

Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,
Should be to wet the dusty soil
With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-
To struggle with imperious thought,

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