The Wanderer From The Fold

How few, of all the hearts that loved,
  Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be moved
  With such a sense of woe?

Too often thus, when left alone,
  Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing tone
  From thy strange history.

Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,
  A glorious child again;
All virtues beaming from thine eyes
  That ever honoured men:

Courage and truth, a generous breast
  Where sinless sunshine lay:
A being whose very presence blest
  Like gladsome summer-day.

O, fairly spread thy early sail,
  And fresh, and pure, and free,
Was the first impulse of the gale
  Which urged life's wave for thee!

Why did the pilot, too confiding,
  Dream o'er that ocean's foam,
And trust in Pleasure's careless guiding
  To bring his vessel home?

For well he knew what dangers frowned,
  What mists would gather, dim;
What rocks and shelves, and sands lay round
  Between his port and him.

The very brightness of the sun
  The splendour of the main,
The wind which bore him wildly on
  Should not have warned in vain.

An anxious gazer from the shore—
  I marked the whitening wave,
And wept above thy fate the more
  Because—I could not save.

It recks not now, when all is over:
  But yet my heart will be
A mourner still, though friend and lover
  Have both forgotten thee!