Poems (Nealds)/Song (Where is the beamy smile, love)

by Adeline Martha Nealds

For works with similar titles, see Song.

SONG.

Where is the beamy smile, love,
Which cheer'd our lonely isle, love,
Where are the roses gone, love,
That on thy fair brow shone, love?
    That smile is fled!
    Those roses dead!
    Those happy hours!
    Those lovely flow'rs!
    Alas! are gone,
    For ever flown,
    Dear isle,
    Sweet smile,
    Farewell!

---

I will not take to myself the credit of composing the above lines, as I literally heard them in a dream, sung by a voice, alas! long since hushed; but it opened the flood-gates of melancholy recollection, and gave rise to the following verses.

Oh! 'twas the voice of by-gone years,
 Which woke me from my sleep;
It stole upon my 'raptur'd ears,
 It made my spirit weep;
So soft, so sweet the harmony,
Surely the sounds were heavenly.

It sped me back to happier hours,
 When all around was bright;
When youthful fancy trod on flow'rs,
 In regions of delight:
It told of hopes which now are fled,
Of friends long number'd with the dead.

It told of friendship, love, and truth,
 Of all to mem'ry dear,
Of all the bosom joys of youth,
 And of their brief career;
But soon the sweet illusion broke,
To cold reality I woke,

And heard, instead of music's tone,
 My own long, deep-drawn sigh;
The stifled sob, the anguish'd groan,
 Of waking misery.
And I did call the vision back,
But, ah! 'twas fled like April's rack.

I saw, in place of love and truth,
 And hope's aërial bow,
And the gay joys of early youth,
 And friendship's plighted vow,
And forms which once bloom'd fresh and fair,
The dark brow'd phantoms of despair;

And found, instead of pleasure's wreath,
 And fancy's path of flowers,
Nought but the thorns that lurk'd beneath,
 And felt their wounding powers:
In vain I strove again to dream,
And drink of sleep's Lethean stream.