Go, youth beloved, in distant lands,
New friends, new hopes, new joys to find!
Yet sometimes deign, midst fairer maids,
To think on her thou leav’st behind,
Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share,
Must never be my happy lot;
But thou may’st grant this humble prayer—
Forget me not, forget me not!
Yet should the thought of my distress;
Too painful to thy feelings be,
Heed not the wish T now express,
Nor ever deign to think on me;
But oh! if grief thy steps attend,
If want, if sickness be thy lot,
And thou require a soothing friend,
Forget me not, forget me not!
There was an eye whose partial glance
Could ne’er my numerous failings see;
There was an ear that still untired,
Could listen to kind praise of me.
There was a heart time only made
For me with fonder feelings burn;
And which whene’er, alas! I roamed,
Still pined and longed for my return.
There was a lip which always breathed
E’en short farewells with tones of sadness
There was a voice whose eager sound
My welcome spoke with heartfelt gladness.
There was a mind, whose vigorous powers
On mine its fostering influence threw;
And called my humble talents forth,
Till thence its dearest joys it drew.
There was a love that oft for me
With anxious fears would overflow;
And wept and prayed for me, and sought
From future ills to guard—but now.
That eye is closed, and deaf that ear,
That lip and voice are mute for ever!
And cold that heart of faithful love,
Which death alone from mine could sever
And lost to me that ardent mind,
Which loved my varied tasks to see;
And, oh! of all the praise I gained,
This was the dearest far to me.
Now I, unloved, uncheered, alone,
Life’s dreary wilderness must tread,
Till He who loves the broken heart,
In mercy bids me join the dead.
But, “Father of the fatherless,”
O! thou that hearest the orphan’s cry,
And “dwellest with the contrite heart,”
As well as in “Thy place on high.”—
O Lord! though like a faded leaf,
That’s severed from its parent tree,
I struggle down life’s stormy tide,
That awful tide which leads to Thee—
Still, Lord! to Thee the voice of praise
Shall spring triumphant from my breast;
Since, though I tread a weary way,
I trust that he I mourn is blest!