Lines Written for the Album at Rosanna. [398]
Oh! lightly tread through these deep chestnut-bowers,
Where a sweet spirit once in beauty moved!
And touch with reverent hand these leaves and flowers—
Fair things, which well a gentle heart hath loved!
A gentle heart, of love and grief th’ abode,
Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flow’d.
And bid its memory sanctify the scene!
And let th’ ideal presence of the dead
Float round, and touch the woods with softer green,
And o’er the streams a charm, like moonlight, shed,
Through the soul’s depths in holy silence felt—
A spell to raise, to chasten, and to melt!
[398] A beautiful place in the county of Wicklow, formerly the abode of the authoress of “Psyche.”