Farewell —farewell, thou holy dwelling-place
Of holier thought! I never more shall pace
The home of boyhood that has left its trace.

In me of freshness from youth's orient spring;
Of hope that fed the expectant blossoming;
Of faith reliant on its heavenward wing.

The sun is setting o'er bleak Mendip's height
Slowly in red and melancholy light,
Expression coloured by my mental sight.

Gleams flash through leaden clouds that hurry by;
One crimson line glares o'er the horizon sky,
Like red Day dying in his agony.

His glorious visage parting rests on me;
Material god! as if to bow the knee
To him was natural idolatry;

As once upon Chaldean mountains, then
When the life-giving power was owned by men,—
The faith and love that could not live again.

He watches me as with a living eye,
Wild elf-lock flakes his brow veil mournfully,
As if into my spirit he could see;

As if he shared the passion that I felt;
As if my sadness in great nature dwelt,
While blessing this loved ground where I have knelt.

Happy that I have seen it! happier
That I, to Nature bound idolater,
In evening's quiet life returned to her.

What marvel my eyes have dimmed with tears?
That memory each sacred spot endears?
Thou the sole witness of those earliest years.

That shall be born again when God, who gave
Their being, re-creates them from the grave
Of the far past, and bids the laurel wave.

Of an eternal green, youth's forehead o'er;
The lost and loved restored on some bright shore
Of bliss, where change and death can come no more.

I never more shall see thee, heath!—thou art
A memory loved that must with me depart,
A holiest relic buried in this heart.

I pass from thee as I had never been;
A wind that sighed itself o'er thee unseen,
A human thing that could not from thee wean.

Affections human which thou gav'st!—that told
To thee its grief and joy, that dared unfold
Feelings it could not from thy breast withhold.

It was I felt thee as a mother; knew
The original tie, on wings of memory flew
Back to the life I from thy bosom drew.

Ineffable, eternal, and unknown!
Wisdom! the outward universe thy throne,
Whose being is in its reflection shown;

Hear me!—here kneeling where my boyhood grew,
Again in me life's earliest faiths renew;
The trust, the love, I from thy Spirit drew.

Life is oblivion, hope its sigh suppressed:
Let the great mystery in darkness rest,
So, child like, I be gathered to thy breast!

Or in Thyself, or in the universe,
Thy visible thought; and be this final verse,
Record of him whose spirit Thou didst nurse.