"The future was my own: my life
Has past as many men's have past;
Adventure, trouble, sorrow, strife,
Yet with success, and home at last.
"But Hope has fled on morning's wings,
And Memory sits with darken’d eye;
And I have learn'd life's dearest things
Are those which never wealth could buy.
"Affection's circle soon grows less—
The dead, the changed, what blanks are there!
And what avails half life's success,
No early friends can see and share?
"My heart has still turn'd back through years,
Whose shadow now around me falls;
I dread to turn to truth the fears,
The hopes in yonder city's walls.
"How fair a scene, the morning light
And human life’s most cheerful sound;
The banks so glad, the stream so bright,
I hear my native tongue around.
"Oh! for some voice I used to hear,
The grasp of one familiar hand;
So long desired, and now so near—
On, boatmen, on, I long to land."
