The Fugitive

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
 From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
 And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.

With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
 The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
 And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.

All hail, light of day!
Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
With hues silver-tinged
The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.

Young Nature invades
The whispering shades,
   Displaying each ravishing charm;
The soft zephyr blows,
And kisses the rose,
   The plain is sweet-scented with balm.

How high from yon city the smoke-clouds ascend!
Their neighing, and snorting, and bellowing blend
The horses and cattle;
The chariot-wheels rattle,
As down to the valley they take their mad way;
   And even the forest where life seems to move,
   The eagle, and falcon, and hawk soar above,
And flutter their pinions, in heaven's bright ray.

In search of repose
From my heart-rending woes,
   Oh, where shall my sad spirit flee?
The earth's smiling face,
With its sweet youthful grace,
   A tomb must, alas, be for me!

Arise, then, thou sunlight of morning, and fling
 O'er plain and o'er forest thy purple-dyed beams!
Thou twilight of evening, all noiselessly sing
 In melody soft to the world as it dreams!

Ah, sunlight of morning, to me thou but flingest
 Thy purple-dyed beams o'er the grave of the past!
Ah, twilight of evening, thy strains thou but singest
 To one whose deep slumbers forever must last!