Classic Poem

O, lovely Fal, whose wooded banks
To thy fair self give wondrous grace,
Of thee, loved stream, I fain would speak,
And having power, thy path would trace,
As flowing onward day by day,
Gently thou glidest on thy way.

Thou, changing ever, yet the same
To me, whose memory loves to rove
Along thy winding silvery course;
Around thy path I oft have wove
Sweet thoughts of pleasures past and gone,
When Love's fair sunlight o'er me shone.

As I, in frail and simple craft,
Down on thy heaving breast did glide;
In the glad transport of those hours
I dreamt not of what might betide,—
I had no thought for care or grief,
Or that life's joys would be but brief.

But those were days that now are past,
Though ling'ring in my memory yet,
Sweet joyous hours of honeyed bliss
That could I, I would ne'er forget,
For they are graven on my heart,
And in my dreams still bear a part.

List! gentle river, to my song,
And bear it onward to the sea;
Accept the tribute I would bring,
The meed of praise I grant to thee.
Flow on, O Fal, with this refrain,
Ye rippling waves, take up the strain.