Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Lines Written for the Album at Rosanna

O, 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 the abode,
Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flowed.

And bid its memory sanctify the scene!
  And let the 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!

1. Joan of Arc in Rheims
2. The Bell at Sea
3. The Rock of Cader Idris
4. Our Lady’s Well
5. The Ivy of Kenilworth

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