6

A STRANGER HERE.

I MISS the dear paternal dwelling,

Which mem'ry still undimm'd recals, A thousand early stories telling,

I miss the venerable walls.

I miss the chamber of my childhood, I miss the shade of boyhood's tree ,­The glen, the path, the cliff, the wild- wood, The music of the well- known sea.

I miss the ivied haunt of moonlight, I miss the forest and the stream,

I miss the fragrant grove of noonlight, I miss our mountain's sunset gleam.

I miss the green slope, where reposing I mused upon the near and far, Marked, one by one, each floweret closing, Watched, one by one, each opening star

I miss the well- remembered faces, The voices, forms of fresher days; Time ploughs not up these deep- drawn traces,

These lines no ages can erase.

I miss them all, for, unforgetting,

My Spirit o'er the past still strays, And, much its wasted years regretting, treads again these shaded ways,