When last this cherish'd day came round,
What aspirations sweet were ours!
Fate, long unkind, our hopes had crown'd,
And strewn, at length, our path with flowers.
How darkly now the prospect lowers;
How thorny is our homeward way;
How more than sad our evening hours,
That used to glide like thought away.
And half infected by our gloom,
Yon little mourner sits and sighs,
His playthings, scatter'd round the room,
No more attract his listless eyes.
Nutting, his infant task, he plies,
On moves with soft and stealthy tread,
And call'd, in tone subdued replies,
As if he feard to wake the dead.
Where is the blithe companion gone,
Whose sports he lov'd to guide and share?
Where is the merry eye that won
All hearts to fondness? Where, oh where?
The empty crib--the vacant chair--
The favourite toy--alone remain,
To whisper to our hearts' despair,
Of hopes we cannot feel again.
Ah, joyless is our 'ingle nook,'--
Its genial warmth we own no more;
Our fireside wears an alter'd look,--
A gloom it never knew before;
The converse sweet--the cherish'd lore--
That once could cheer our stormiest day,--
Those revels of the soul are o'er;
Those simple pleasures past away.
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