Thou'rt bearing hence thy roses,
Glad summer, fare thee well!
Thou'rt singing thy last melodies
In every wood and dell.

But ere the golden sunset
Of thy latest lingering day,
Oh! tell me, o'er this chequer'd earth,
How hast thou pass'd away?

Brightly, sweet summer, brightly
Thine hours have floated by,
To the joyous birds of the woodland boughs,
The rangers of the sky.

And brightly in the forests,
To the wild deer wandering free:
And brightly 'mid the garden flowers
To the happy murmuring bee;

But how to human bosoms,
With all their hopes and fears,
And thoughts that make them eagle-wings,
To pierce the unborn years?

Sweet summer! to the captive
Thou hast flown in burning dreams
Of the woods with all their whispering leaves,
And the blue rejoicing streams;

To the wasted and the weary,
On the bed of sickness bound,
In swift delirious fantasies,
That changed with every sound;

To the sailor on the billows,
In longings wild and vain,
For the gushing founts and breezy hills,
And the homes of earth again!

And unto me, glad summer!
How hast thou flown to me?
My chainless footsteps nought hath kept
From thy haunts of song and glee.

Thou hast flown in wayward visions,
In memories of the dead -
In shadows from a troubled heart,
O'er thy sunny pathway shed:

In brief and sudden strivings
To fling a weight aside -
'Midst these thy melodies have ceased,
And all thy roses died.

But oh! thou gentle summer,
If I greet thy flowers once more,
Bring me again the buoyancy,
Wherewith my soul should soar!

Give me to hail thy sunshine,
With song and spirit free;
Or in a purer air than this,
May that next meeting be!