The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/A Farewell to Connecticut
A FAREWELL TO CONNECTICUT.
turned a last look to my dear native mountain,
As the dim blush of sunset grew pale in the sky;
All was still, save the music that leaped from the fountain,
And the wave of the woods to the summer-wind’s sigh.
Far around, the gray mist of the twilight was stealing,
And the tints of the landscape had faded in blue,
Ere my pale lip could murmur the accents of feeling,
As it bade the fond scenes of my childhood adieu.
Oh! mock not that pang, for my heart was retracing
Past visions of happiness, sparkling and clear:
My heart was still warm with a mother’s embracing,
My cheek was still wet with a fond sister’s tear.
Like an infant’s first sleep on the lap of its mother,
Were the days of my childhood—those days are no more;
And my sorrow’s deep throb I had struggled to smother
Was that infant’s wild cry when its first sleep was o’er.
Years have gone by, and remembrance now covers,
With the tinge of the moonbeam, the thoughts of that hour;
Yet still in his day-dream the wanderer hovers
Round the cottage he left and its green woven bower.
And Hope lingers near him, her wildest song breathing,
And points to a future day, distant and dim,
When the finger of sunset, its eglantine weaving,
Shall brighten the home of his childhood for him.
