And I must be what I have been,
And not what I am now,
Ere these could call a smile, or chase
One shadow from my brow.
I must lay in some nameless sea
The ghosts of hopes long fled;
Efface dark memory's scroll, and leave
A shining page instead.
I must forget youth's bloom is fled,
Ere its own measured hours;
I must forget that summer dies,
Even amid its flowers.
And give me more than pleasure's task
Belief that they can be;
Then every spreading sail were slow
To bear me on the sea.
But now I care not for their course;
Wherever I may roam,
I bear about the weariness
That haunted me at home.
I may see all around me changed,
Beneath a foreign sky;
I may fly scenes, and friends, and foes—
Myself I cannot fly.L. E. L.
