OH Heart-Ease, dost thou lie within that flower?
How shall I draw thee thence?--so much I need
The healing aid of thine enshrined power
To veil the past--and bid the time good speed!

I gather it--it withers on my breast;
The Heart's-Ease dies when it is laid on mine;
Methinks there is no shape by joy possess'd,
Would better fare than thou upon that shrine.

Take from me things gone by--oh! change the past--
Renew the lost--restore me the decay'd;--
Bring back the days whose tide has ebb'd so fast--
Give form again to the fantastic shade!

My hope, that never grew to certainty,--
My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire,--
My fond ambition, crush'd ere it could be
Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire;

Bring these anew, and set me once again
In the delusion of Life's Infancy--
I was not happy, but I knew not then
That happy I was never doom'd to be.

Till these things are, and pow'rs divine descend--
Love, kindness, joy, and hope, to gild my day,
In vain the emblem leaves towards me bend,
Thy Spirit, Heart-Ease, is too far away!