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We have grown selfish, and we know
    The strength of chance and change;
For many a voice is altered now,
    And many an eye grown strange.

Where is the early confidence,
    Whose kindly trust depends,
Drawn from itself its inference,
    On future hours and friends?

Gone, gone! so soon!—yet not in vain
    Has been their sojourn here;
A fountain in the desert plain
    Of memory, pure and dear.

A well of sympathy for those,
    The loving and the young,
Letting not that harsh circle close
    By interest round us flung.

If thus with them—the stern, the cold,
    What must its charm have been
To one cast in the poet's mould,—
    He of this fairy scene?

A spirit from that hour was shed,
    His spell of song to be;
And if in other hearts he read,
     His own heart was the key!
L. E. L.