The Wanderer from the Fold

How few, of all the hearts that loved,Are grieving for thee now;And why should mine to-night be movedWith such a sense of woe?

Too often thus, when left alone,Where none my thoughts can see,Comes back a word, a passing toneFrom thy strange history.

Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,A glorious child again;All virtues beaming from thine eyesThat ever honoured men:

Courage and truth, a generous breastWhere sinless sunshine lay:A being whose very presence blestLike gladsome summer-day.

O, fairly spread thy early sail,And fresh, and pure, and free,Was the first impulse of the galeWhich urged life's wave for thee!Why did the pilot, too confiding,Dream o'er that ocean's foam,And trust in Pleasure's careless guidingTo bring his vessel home?

For well he knew what dangers frowned,What mists would gather, dim;What rocks and shelves, and sands lay roundBetween his port and him.

The very brightness of the sun,The splendour of the main,The wind which bore him wildly onShould not have warned in vain.

An anxious gazer from the shore—I marked the whitening wave,And wept above thy fate the moreBecause—I could not save.

It recks not now, when all is over:But yet my heart will beA mourner still, though friend and loverHave both forgotten thee!