The Reply Of The Fountain
HOW deep within each human heart,
A thousand treasured feelings lie;
Things precious, delicate, apart,
Too sensitive for human eye.
Our purest feelings, and our best,
Yet shrinking from the common view;
Rarely except in song exprest,
And yet how tender, and how true!
They wake, and know their power, when eve
Flings on the west its transient glow;
Yet long dark shadows dimly weave
A gloom round some green path below.
Who dreams not then—the young dream on—
Life traced at hope's delicious will;
And those whose youth of heart is gone,
Perhaps have visions dearer still.
They rise, too, when expected least,
When gay yourself, amid the gay,
The heart from revelry hath ceased
To muse o'er hours long past away.
And who can think upon the past
And not weep o'er it as a grave?
How many leaves life's wreath has cast!
What lights have sunk beneath the wave!
But most these deep emotions rise
When, drooping o'er our thoughts alone,
Our former dearest sympathies
Come back, and claim us for their own.
Such mood is on the maiden's mind
Who bends o'er yon clear fount her brow;
Long years, that leave their trace behind,
Long years, are present with her now.
Yet, once before she asked a sign
From that wild fountain's plaintive song;
And silvery, with the soft moonshine,
Those singing waters past along.
It was an hour of beauty, made
For the young heart's impassioned mood,
For love of its sweet self afraid,
For hope that colours solitude.
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poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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