Page:Poems Welby.djvu/79

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71
  When slumber waves her wand
Over my brow, I wander in my dreams
Close by the ripples of our soft blue streams
  Far in my native land,
And lovely visions o'er my eye-lids play!
that I could but dream my life away!

  I see my mother then;
A pleasant smile sleeps on her features fair,
And the low cadence of her whispered prayer
  Steals on my ear again,
As when I knelt beside her blessed knee—
Mother, sweet Mother, dost thou pray for me?

  Upon the summer rose
Nature's faint pencilings are softly seen,
Laid on with cunning hand, and bright and green,
  Where the wood-branches close
The honey-suckle wreathes our cottage eaves—
Alas! I may not sit beneath its leaves!

  Before I sought the sea,
1 used to wander with my sister sweet,
And many a winding path our little feet
  Made round the old oak tree,
Where in the sunshine we were wont to play—
And they are there—but I am far away!

  O! could I only ride
Upon the ocean where the wild winds meet,