Nights Of Music.

Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
        My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
        Was love, still love.
        New hope may bloom,
        And days may come,

    Of milder, calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream;
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream.

Tho' the bard to purer fame may soar,
            When wild youth's past;
Tho' he win the wise, who frowned before,
            To smile at last;
            He'll never meet
            A joy so sweet,
    In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman's ear
    His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blushed to hear
    The one lov'd name.
...

When thro' life unblest we rove,
    Losing all that made life dear,
Should some notes we used to love,
    In days of boyhood, meet our ear,
Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!
    Wakening thoughts that long have slept;
Kindling former smiles again
    In faded eyes that long have wept.

Like the gale, that sighs along
    Beds of oriental flowers,
Is the grateful breath of song,
    That once was heard in happier hours;
Filled with balm, the gale sighs on,
    Tho' the flowers have sunk in death;
So, when pleasure's dream is gone,
    Its memory lives in Music's breath.

Music, oh how faint, how weak,
    Language fades before thy spell!
Why should Feeling ever speak,
    When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
Friendship's ...

Hush, sweet Lute, thy songs remind me
    Of past joys, now turned to pain;
Of ties that long have ceased to bind me,
    But whose burning marks remain.
In each tone, some echo falleth
    On my ear of joys gone by;
Every note some dream recalleth
    Of bright hopes but born to die.

Yet, sweet Lute, though pain it bring me,
    Once more let thy numbers thrill;
Tho' death were in the strain they sing me,
    I must woo its anguish still.
Since no time can e'er recover
    Love's sweet light when once 'tis set,--
Better to weep such pleasures over,
    Than smile o'er any left us yet.

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remembered, even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure to hear
When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear;
And, as Echo far off thro' the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, oh my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls,[1]
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

There's a song of the olden time,
    Falling sad o'er the ear,
Like the dream of some village chime,
    Which in youth we loved to hear.
And even amidst the grand and gay,
    When Music tries her gentlest art
I never hear so sweet a lay,
    Or one that hangs so round my heart,
As that song of the olden time,
    Falling sad o'er the ear,
Like the dream of some village chime,
    Which in youth we loved to hear,

And when all of this life is gone,--
    Even the hope, lingering now,
Like the last of the leaves left on
    Autumn's sere and faded bough,--
'Twill seem as still those friends were near,
    Who loved me in youth's early day,
If in that parting hour I hear
    The same sweet notes and die away,--
To that song of the olde...

Oft in the stilly night,
    Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
    Of other days around me;
        The smiles, the tears,
        Of boyhood's years,
    The words of love then spoken;
        The eyes that shone,
        Now dimmed and gone,
    The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
    Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
    Of other days around me.

When I remember all
    The friends, so linked together,
I've seen around me fall,
    Like leaves in wintry weather;
        I feel like one,
        Who treads alone,
    Some banquet-hall deserted,
        Whose lights are fled,
        Whose garlands dead,
    And all but he departed!
Thu...