O! WHEN wilt thou return
To thy spirit's early loves?
To the freshness of the morn,
To the stillness of the groves?

The summer-birds are calling
Thy household porch around,
And the merry waters falling
With sweet laughter in their sound.

And a thousand bright-vein'd flowers,
From their banks of moss and fern,
Breathe of the sunny hours —
But when wilt thou return?

Oh! thou hast wander'd long
From thy home without a guide;
And thy native woodland song,
In thine alter'd heart hath died.

Thou hast flung the wealth away,
And the glory of thy Spring;
And to thee the leaves' light play
Is a long-forgotten thing.

But when wilt thou return? —
Sweet dews may freshen soon
The flower, within whose urn
Too fiercely gazed the noon.

O'er the image of the sky,
Which the lake's clear bosom wore,
Darkly may shadows lie —
But not for evermore.

Give back thy heart again
To the freedom of the woods,
To the birds' triumphant strain,
To the mountain solitudes!

But when wilt thou return?
Along thine own pure air,
There are young sweet voices borne —
Oh! should not thine be there?

Still at thy father's board
There is kept a place for thee;
And, by thy smile restored,
Joy round the hearth shall be.

Still hath thy mother's eye,
Thy coming step to greet,
A look of days gone by,
Tender and gravely sweet.

Still, when the prayer is said,
For thee kind bosoms yearn,
For thee kind tears are shed —
Oh! when wilt thou return!