BANISHED for ever! From the scene of my birth, For ever! for ever! From all I loved dearest, and cherished on earth, From the smile of my friends, and the home of their hearth, To come again never!
Banished for ever! From hope and from home, For ever! for ever! Away in the desert of distance to roam, Like a ship tempest-tost on the wild sea-wave's foam, To land again never!
Banished for ever! When all have gone by, For ever! for ever! The gladness of earth, and the brightness of sky, There's no fear but to live, and no hope but to die-- To _feel_ again never!
Banished for ever! 'Tis madness to me, For ever! for ever! To think of the land I shall ne'er again see, Of the days that have been, and the days that shall be-- That thought leaves me never!
Banished for ever! Be this my adieu-- For ever! for ever! Let me roam where I will, ne'er again shall I view, Scenes so cherished and fair, friends so kind and so true; Oh, never! oh, never!
Banished for ever! Dear land of my birth, We sever! we sever! An exile from all I love dearest on earth, From the smile of my friends, from the home of their hearth-- For ever! for ever!
IN the seclusion of my solitude, Thy echo reached me, and awoke a brood Of slumbering fancies into life and light; A spell seemed thrown around me, and my mind Was full of unfixed images; the bright And ready impulses of thought, confined And struggling to be free; a light had dawned Across my path, as if by Heaven's command.
A lofty and immeasurable longing Sprung up within my breast, beyond control, A throbbing multitude of fancies thronging Strove to o'ermaster and o'ermatch the whole: Creation rose from chaos, as at first, A water in the wilderness to quench my thirst. The complicated elements of Mind, No longer dim, confused, and undefined, Rolled into order, and the springs of thought Became then less obscure, and less remote. My mind, not yet in union with its thoughts, Seemed sad and solitary; o'er it swept A calmness like the soft sun-breeze that floats Above the wave, that light and languid leapt: Then high imaginations, restless, past Into being--various, vivid, vast-- And thought, admixing with the mind's emotion, Assumed a depth and fervour of devotion, The semblance and the hope, if not the true Sole inspiration of poetic lore; Then truth, at times, like light, came struggling through, And I was sad and heart-forgone no more.