VIRGINIA.
291
My voice has blended with thy streams,
And claims their immortality,
My spirit, chained within thy beams,
Still owns their bright captivity.
And claims their immortality,
My spirit, chained within thy beams,
Still owns their bright captivity.
O, for an angel's voice to-day,
To sing, as I would sing, to thee;
For mine is wedded to decay,
The fate of our mortality;
And I would speak in one whose tones
Would ring forever through thy hills,
Proud as the shout round victor's thrones,
Yet gentle as thy gentlest rills.
To sing, as I would sing, to thee;
For mine is wedded to decay,
The fate of our mortality;
And I would speak in one whose tones
Would ring forever through thy hills,
Proud as the shout round victor's thrones,
Yet gentle as thy gentlest rills.
Blessed, thrice blessed to my heart,
The draught thy memory holds to me;
I would not from its influence part
For all the world can give or see.
What are her cold and cautious smiles,
To the warm feelings of our youth?
Her practiced and deceitful wiles,
To childhood's young and ardent truth?
The draught thy memory holds to me;
I would not from its influence part
For all the world can give or see.
What are her cold and cautious smiles,
To the warm feelings of our youth?
Her practiced and deceitful wiles,
To childhood's young and ardent truth?
The present hath a boundless scope,
Yet all eludes our grasp, we see;
Before us is a world of hope,
Behind a world of memory.
Oft will uncertainties arise
Darkening the paths we walk alone;
Yet soft and radiant are the skies
That circle Memory's flowery throne.
Yet all eludes our grasp, we see;
Before us is a world of hope,
Behind a world of memory.
Oft will uncertainties arise
Darkening the paths we walk alone;
Yet soft and radiant are the skies
That circle Memory's flowery throne.
