Classic Poem

Friend of my youth! thy voice has been
The balm of many an anguish keen;
And if, for once, my conscious soul
Could all melodious powers control,
My lyre's last tones, that flow to soothe
The sorrows of thy filial love,
In music of past times should steal
O'er thy sad heart, its woes to heal.
Oh! could I burst the withering spell,
That, fraught with visions horrible,
Has o'er thy heart a ruin hurl'd,
Dread as the death-hour of a world.
Oh! could I wake thee to a morning,
Whose beams, all shades of sadness scorning,
Would ope thy placid eye to know
Peace such as thine a year ago.
The fragile visions of the night
Are born in peace, and end in light;
Their beauty breaks in brighter day;
Or morning wafts their woes away.
But ah! these dreams of day impart
Such lingering sadness to the heart,
Cast in a moment on the eye,
Alas! they haste not swiftly by,
But dimly drags each faltering day,
And still the hateful objects stay.
They will not pass — but on we tread
Midst tombs of friends, and pleasures dead.
The sun but lightens to make known
How desolate our path is grown;
Or, if night slumbers on the air,
The ghosts of former times are there.