Our climate’s nightingale, her garden bird,
From lips unseen, unknown, this whispered song she heard:
“The summer winds are wandering here
In mountain freshness, pure and free,
And all that to the eye are dear
In rock and torrent, flower and tree,
Upon the gazing stranger come,
Till, in his starlight dreams at even,
It seems another Eden-home,
Reared by the word—the breath of Heaven.
“To-morrow—and the stranger’s gone,
And other scenes, as bright as this,
May win it from his bosom soon,
And dim its wild-wood loveliness.
But ever round this spot his thought
Will be—while Memory’s leaves are green;
The fairy scene may be forgot,
But not the Fairy of the scene.
“The song she sang, the lip that breathed it,
The cheek of rose, the speaking eye,
The brow of snow, the hair that wreathed it,
In their young life and purity,
Will dwell within his heart among
His holiest, longest cherished things,
