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It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature. - Henry James

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Lone's the mist-cloaked road before me lying...

     

1

Lone's the mist-cloaked road before me lying;
On and on it winds and draws me far.
Night is still, all earthly sounds are dying;
Nature lists to God; star speaks to star.

2

Clothed in dark is earth and wrapt in slumber,
And the skies are full of majesty.
Why, then, does reflection, drear and sombre,
Plague my heart and slay felicity?

3

I await no boons of fate, regretting
Not the past, for that is buried deep.
Ah, to find true freedom, true forgetting
In the calm of everlasting sleep!                      

4

Yet I dread the cold and clammy fingers
And the leaden, icy sleep of death.
Would that life within me, dormant, lingered
And I felt its warm and balmy breath;

5

Would that love's own voice, my ear caressing,
Night and day sang dulcet song to me,
And an ancient oak, my slumber blessing,
Swayed above my head eternally.


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