Will make me grieve that birds, and things

So beautiful, have ever wings!

And there are hours in the lonely night,

When I seem to hear thy calls,

Faint as the echos of far delight,

And dreamy and sad as the sighing flight

Of distant waterfalls ;

And then my vow is hard to keep,

For it were a joy, indeed, to weep!

For I feel, as men feel when moonlight falls
Amid old cathedral aisles;

Or the wind plays, sadly, along the walls
Of lonely and forsaken halls,

That we knew in their day of smiles;

Or as one who hears, amid foreign flowers,

A tune he had learnt in his mother's bowers.

But I may not, and I dare not weep,

Lest the vision pass away,

And the vigils that I love to keep

Be broken up, by the fevered sleep
That leaves me-with the day-

Like one who has travelled far, to the spot
Where his home should be-and finds it not!

Yet then, like the incense of many flowers, Rise pleasant thoughts to me;

For I know, from thy dwelling in eastern bowers,

That thy spirit has come, in those silent hours,

To meet me over the sea;

And I feel, in my soul, the fadeless truth

Of her whom I loved in early youth.

Like hidden streams,-whose quiet tone
Is unheard in the garish day,

That utter a music all their own,

When the night-dew falls, and the lady moon
Looks out to hear them play,-

I knew not half thy gentle worth,

Till grief drew all its music forth.

We shall not meet on earth again!-
And I would have it so ;

For, they tell me that the cloud of pain
Has flung its shadow o'er thy brain,
And touched thy looks with woe;
And I have heard that storm and shower
Have dimmed thy loveliness, my flower!

I would not look upon thy tears,-
For I have thee in my heart,

Just as thou wert, in those blessed years

When we were, both, too young for fears

That we should ever part;

And I would not aught should mar the spell,

The picture nursed so long and well!

I love to think on thee, as one

With whom the strife is o'er ;
And feel that I am journeying on,
Wasted, and weary, and alone,

To join thee on that shore

Where thou-I know-wilt look for me,

And I, for ever, be with thee!

ORA

OF THE

UNIVERSITY