The Bluebell cannot charm me now, The heath has lost its bloom;The violets in the glen below, They yield no sweet perfume.
But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell, 'Tis better far away;I know how fast my tears would swell To see it smile to-day.
For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall Adown that dreary sky, And gild yon dank and darkened wall With transient brilliancy;How do I weep, how do I pine For the time of flowers to come, And turn me from that fading shine, To mourn the fields of home!
III.
Loud without the wind was roaring Through th'autumnal sky;Drenching wet, the cold rain pouring, Spoke of winter nigh.
All too like that dreary eve, Did my exiled spirit grieve.
Grieved at first, but grieved not long, Sweet--how softly sweet!--it came;Wild words of an ancient song, Undefined, without a name.
"It was spring, and the skylark was singing:"
Those words they awakened a spell;They unlocked a deep fountain, whose springing, Nor absence, nor distance can quell.
In the gloom of a cloudy November They uttered the music of May ;They kindled the perishing ember Into fervour that could not decay.
Awaken, o'er all my dear moorland, West-wind, in thy glory and pride!
Oh! call me from valley and lowland, To walk by the hill-torrent's side!
It is swelled with the first snowy weather;The rocks they are icy and hoar, And sullenly waves the long heather, And the fern leaves are sunny no more.
There are no yellow stars on the mountain The bluebells have long died away From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain--
From the side of the wintry brae.
But lovelier than corn-fields all waving In emerald, and vermeil, and gold, Are the heights where the north-wind is raving, And the crags where I wandered of old.
It was morning: the bright sun was beaming;How sweetly it brought back to me The time when nor labour nor dreaming Broke the sleep of the happy and free!
But blithely we rose as the dawn-heaven Was melting to amber and blue, And swift were the wings to our feet given, As we traversed the meadows of dew.
For the moors! For the moors, where the short grass Like velvet beneath us should lie!