RETROSPECTIVE.

I'm free from the city's noises now, And the city cares that bound me; I chase their shadows off my brow, 'Mid the rural scenes around me.

And alone in the shadowy evening light, In the deepening gloom and sadness, I roam the paths of past delight Of youth's wild dream of gladness.

I see the panorama vast That to these eyes is giving The joyous scenes of that dead past Still in my bosom living.

I call those thoughts and memories back That stern-faced Toil has banished, And wander o'er the beaten track Of happy days long vanished.

The friends of youth for whom I sigh— The true and tender-hearted; The happiness of days gone by, The pleasures long departed:

I see them all again to-night, They seem to come and linger Like pictures traced in truest light By Memory's artist finger.

Those happy times, to me how dear! Well loved, yet lost for ever; Those forms that I can fancy near, Can they return? Ah, never!

Grim Time's dark shadow of decay Falls on our hopes when brightest; A cloud may dim our sky of May When happy hearts beat lightest.

When golden sunbeams softly fall In light on shrub and flower, E'en then a storm to blight them all May in the distance lour!

But still when evening's shadowy light Steals round in gloom and sadness, I'll feel a thrill of old delight, Of youth's wild dream of gladness!