Chapter XXXII

Such were the charms that pleas’d my eye,
When infant years flew swiftly by.
Past are those scenes, those days are fled,
Those joys are sleeping with the dead;
The world has oped her gaudy store
Of pleasures, unconceived before;
Far from my childhood’s happy home,
My wand’ring footsteps widely roam.
Ah; to whatever clime I stray,
Fond memory still shall point the way,
To the lone, undisturb’d retreat,
Where sped life’s morning, bright and fleet,--
Where childhood’s hours were gaily spent
With virtue, peace, and sweet content.
The beauties of a lovelier sky
Speak less of heaven to my eye,
The verdure of a distant plain,
The billows of a foreign main,
Raise not the rapture of delight,
Like scenes that charm our infant sight.