Classic Poem

BY OTWAY CURRY .

The image of a happier home,
Whence far my feet have stray'd,
Still flits around me, as I roam,
Like Joy's departed shade; —
Though childhood's light of joy has set,
Its home is dear to memory yet!

Here — where the lapse of time hath swept
The forest's waving pride,
And many a summer's light hath slept
Upon the green hill's side,
I'll rest — while twilight's pinions spread
Their shadows o'er my grassy bed.

Yon stars — enthroned so high — so bright,
Like gems on heaven's fair brow,
Through all the majesty of night
Are smiling on me now:
The promptings of poetic dreams
Are floating on their pale, pure beams.

The Muses of the starry spheres
High o'er me wend along,
With visions of my infant years
Blending their choral song —
Strewing with fancy's choicest flowers,
The pathway of the tranced hours.

They sing of constellations high,
The weary minstrel's home;
Of days of sorrow hastening by,
And bright ones yet to come —
Far in the sky, like ocean isles,
Where sunny light forever smiles.

They sing of happy circles, bright,
Where bards of old have gone;
Where rounding ages of delight,
Undimm'd, are shining on; —
And now, in silence, sleeps again
The breathing of their mystic strain.

Leave me — O! leave me not alone,
While I am sleeping here;
Still let that soft and silvery tone
Sound in my dreaming ear:
I would not lose that strain divine,
To call earth's thousand kingdoms mine!

It is the sunbeam of the mind,
Whose bliss can ne'er be won,
Till the reviving soul shall find
Life's long, dark journey done, —
Then peerless splendor shall array
The morning of that sinless day.