Swallow, cruel swallow! wherefore dost thou come
Glancing in the sunlight, by the gleaming river,
Year after year, unto thy northern home,
While youth and love are leaving us for ever?
Cruel swallow, calling up the memories
Of happy years, of what can never be,—
Of friends departed, gone beyond the seas,
And faëry days of childhood I never more shall see!
And boyhood’s happy hours, all bright and golden,
And love’s young dream in halcyon days of yore,
Beside a gleaming river, in summer days of olden,
Like a band of early blossoms, gone for evermore!
Glancing in the sunlight, every springtime coming
Thou must be some spirit, set for ever free,
When the yellow bees are in the meadows humming,
And the golden sunlight floods the earth and sea.
Oh! joyous swallow, gliding on careless wing,
Happy as the summer hours gone for ever by,
Come not, come not back again with the gentle Spring;
Stay within thy southern home, beneath thy southern sky.
For youth and friends can never come again;
And love, if gone, ’tis gone, alas, for ever!
Call not up the memories thou can’st not lull to sleep,
Gliding in the sunlight by the gleaming river.