Adieu, Adieu! My Native Shore

Adieu, adieu! my native shore
Fades o’ver the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native Land-Good Night!
A few short hours, and he will rise
To give the morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies,
But not my mother earth.
Deserted is my own good hallIts hearth is desolate;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
My dog howls at the gate.

 

 

And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low?

And wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so–
I would not give that bosom pain.

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
Wilt sigh above my place of rest.

And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud of anguish shine:
And for a while my sorrows cease,
To know thy heart hath felt for mine.

Oh lady! blessd be that tear–
It falls for one who cannot weep;
Such precious drops are doubly dear
To those whose eyes no tear may steep.

Sweet lady! once my heart was warm
With every feeling soft as thine;
But Beauty’s self hath ceased to charm
A wretch created to repine.

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so–
I would not give that bosom pain.

In law an infant, and in years a boy,

In mind a slave to every vicious joy;

From every sense of shame and virtue wean’d;

In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;

Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;

Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;

Women his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;

Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;

Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,

And found the goal when others just begin:

Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,

And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure’s bowl;

But, pall’d with vice, he breaks his former chain,

And what was once his bliss appears his

In the valley of the waters we wept o’er the day

When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey,

And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,

And our hearts were so full of the land far away.

The song they demanded in vain–it lay still

In our souls as the wind that died on the hill;

They called for the harp–but our blood they shall spill

Ere our right hand shall teach them one tone of our skill.

All stringlessly hung on the willow’s sad tree,

As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be;

Our hands may be fetter’d–our tears still are free,

For our God and our glory–and, Sion!–Oh, thee.

bane.