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The plays a city fancy played
Took aptly to the scene,
Here gleamed the Hermitage, embayed
In its appropriate green;
There towered (and peeped into a street)
The ruined arch alone,
Yon flowery square of fifty feet,
A desert all its own.
And ah, what figures rose to view
Among those pleasant glades!
What aspects, joining old with new
In ever-mingling shades!
So few, and yet so many grown,
While memory's wizard ray
Transmutes the yellow locks to brown,
And brown, alas! to grey.
What Sabbath mornings rose once more,
Dear Mother, while with pride
A stumbling servitor I bore
The basket at thy side!
And all the flowers that fell to ground
A perquisite of mine,
—Own Mother, where were ever found
Such careless hands as thine!
