I never sought my mother's face
To tell my grief & make my moan
But crept away to some lone place
And sat until the cloud was gone

But it would give so strange a tone
Even to things inanimate
Yes all that then I looked upon
Took the dark boding hue of fate

And if I turned some storied page
So wild a glamour o'er it grew
That scarce in youth's increasing age
Dared I the feeling to renew
T'was like a foretaste from the tomb
A warning voice to call me home
In that mood I have watched the sun
Go down upon my Sire's domain
Its long day's course of glory done
Its bower of roses spread again
And oh how solemn seemed the wane
Solemn! that word can never tell
The deadly sense of mental pain
That wrung me as the evening-bell
Tolled out each castle sentinel
And I beheld them measure slow
Their walk upon the flags below
And heard them whistle clear & shrill
My own wild woodland's melodies
The soft, sweet plaintive airs that thrill
Through all the land of lakes &
And knew that they with