The Papers of Pastor Felir

1742

Like mists that round a mountain gray
Hang for an hour, then melt away,
So I and nearly all my race

Have vanished from my native place.

Each haunt of boyhood's loves and dreams
More beautiful in fancy seems;

Yet if I to those scenes repair,

I find I am a stranger there.

O thou beloved Acadie!

How, whensoe'er I think of thee,

Dull grow these skies 'neath which I range,
While all the summer hills are strange.

Yet sometimes I discern thy gleam
In sparkles of the chiming stream;
And sometimes speaks thy haunting lore
The foam-wreathed Sibyl of the Shore.

And sometimes will mine eyes incline
To hill or wood that seems like thine;
Or, if the robin pipeth clear,

It is thy vernal note I hear.

And oft my heart will leap aflame,
To deem I hear thee call my name,-
To see thy face with gladness shine,
And find the joy that once was mine.

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