YE solemn Hours,
That swift and stealthily,
Laden with stores untold,
From past eternity to future glide!

Methinks at night
I see your phantom-forms,
Down the dim vault of time
Sweeping in silent majesty along.

Then to my mind,
As amid leafless boughs
The bleak wind whistles shrill,
Throng buried hopes, — throngs the sad waste of years;

Till half I wish
I might my days recall;
And with experience old,
Trace out anew some better path to Heav'n.