O H ! dream of my youth in its innocent hours,
A moment return in thine image of bliss;
And play round my bosom as once mid' the flowers,
When I tasted life's sweetness, nor e'er dream'd of this.

Sweet scenes of my childhood, dear hills of my home,
Could I see you once more with the same tearless eyes,
You might chance teach the wanderer no further to roam,
But again be your child with the breast free from sighs.

Do you still breathe your mornings as fresh to the sense?
Are your evenings as beauteous, and sung to repose
By the birds of the spring? Are your wood-paths as dense
With the flowers of the forest, and scented wild rose?

As calm flows your river; the white sail is seen
Like a bird of the heavens on its journey of light;
Your shores are as wild and your pastures as green
As in days when I sought them with musing delight.

Your year speeds as lovely, your seasons as fair,
As the far fabled gardens that bloom'd in the west;
But where are the hearts that admir'd them? ah, where
Is the voice to commend what was loveliest and best?

I know not, I ask not, what time has in store,
But heaven yet hath something the exile to lend,
To lie 'neath the green that he play'd on before,
The joy of his youth, and the peace of his end.

O H ! dream of my youth in its innocent hours,
A moment return in thine image of bliss;
And play round my bosom as once mid' the flowers,
When I tasted life's sweetness, nor e'er dream'd of this.

Sweet scenes of my childhood, dear hills of my home,
Could I see you once more with the same tearless eyes,
You might chance teach the wanderer no further to roam,
But again be your child with the breast free from sighs.

Do you still breathe your mornings as fresh to the sense?
Are your evenings as beauteous, and sung to repose
By the birds of the spring? Are your wood-paths as dense
With the flowers of the forest, and scented wild rose?

As calm flows your river; the white sail is seen
Like a bird of the heavens on its journey of light;
Your shores are as wild and your pastures as green
As in days when I sought them with musing delight.

Your year speeds as lovely, your seasons as fair,
As the far fabled gardens that bloom'd in the west;
But where are the hearts that admir'd them? ah, where
Is the voice to commend what was loveliest and best?

I know not, I ask not, what time has in store,
But heaven yet hath something the exile to lend,
To lie 'neath the green that he play'd on before,
The joy of his youth, and the peace of his end.