Classic Poem

By the brooklet, grove and meadow,
Where together once we stray'd,
Do I wander, fond as ever,
Haunting still each secret shade;
And, that thus content I wander,
Where such precious joys were mine,
Do I know that thou art with me,
And my spirit walks with thine.

In the murmur of the brooklet,
Still thy well-known voice I hear,
And the whisper in the tree-top,
Tells me that thy form is near;
Thou hast left me, at departing,
All that earth could never take,
And, still comforted, I wander
Through these shadows for thy sake.

Were I guilty of a passion
Which thy beauty could survive,
Still I feel thy gentle presence
Must the earthly fancy shrive;
And, discoursing with thy spirit,
Oh! I feel that earth has naught
To compensate the forgetting
Of the sweetness thou hast taught.