“Dear native stream! and thou, thrice happy lawn! 
    Where once I roved, in youth’s first joyous dawn,
    While every wind a holy silence kept,
    And peaceful on the flood the sunbeam slept: 
    I now return, and ask of your kind wave
    The last unenvied gift, a quiet grave! 
    From scene to scene of varied misery toss’d,
    Each hope, each joy, each cheerful prospect lost,
    With cares and labours many a year oppress’d,
    I hail the dawn of everlasting rest! 
    Tho’ worn with sufferings, my distracted soul
    Scarce bows to former reason’s firm controul,
    Ere yet I sink to death’s secure repose,
    Once more let me retrace my ancient woes,
    And count those various pangs, which now shall cease
    In the calm bosom of unchanging peace.

      “Smooth roll’d my vernal years, while on my head
    Fate’s early smiles a meteor-lustre shed. 
    No painful fear, no troubles, then had power
    To break the current of one peaceful hour. 
    Oft as I trod the meadow’s verdant round,
    Or pierced the echoing forest’s gloomy bound,
    Or traced the willowy margin of the stream,
    Lost in the wildering maze of Fancy’s dream,
    Before me Life’s long years in prospect rose,
    By fears unbroken, undisturb’d by woes. 
    Yes!  I remember well,—­my dizzy brain
    Feels those bright hours not yet effaced by pain: 
    Still on my soul they cast a distant light,
    And gild with transitory gleams the night!

      “Yet then, ev’n then, the powers of fate below
    Prepared for me their gather’d stores of woe: 
    The tempest watch’d to blot my peaceful day,
    And silent in their beds the thunders lay!

      “Short was my date of joy:  the yawning tomb
    Snatch’d my loved parents to eternal gloom. 
    With fearful awe my shuddering soul survey’d
    The untried path of misery display’d,
    Gazed wild upon Misfortune’s unknown form,
    And watch’d the coming terrors of the storm.

      “Soon burst the cloud, and far away was borne
    The last faint gleam of Life’s deceitful morn. 
    For fancied crimes expell’d my native shore,
    And doom’d alone to measure ocean o’er,
    I left those scenes where joy for ever reigns,
    Secure to find her on no other plains.

“Dark rose the morn:  the wind in every wood
Howl’d, and the meteors glancing o’er the flood
Flash’d a portentous light.  Before the gale
With streaming eyes I spread my little sail: 
Swift o’er the sounding waves the vessel flew,
Cliff after cliff receding from my view: 
Chill ran my heart—­the swelling sails I furl’d,
While yet emerging from the watery world
One headland rose—­O’er all the boundless main. }
I cast my shuddering view—­I wept in vain—­     }
I wrung my hands in agonizing pain:              }
O’er my dim eyes increasing darkness hung,