One picture fair within my heart I carry,
⁠Unshadowed by the weary weight of years;
And often, as amid strange scenes I tarry,
⁠A vision of my early youth appears.

The houses clustered on the water’s border,
⁠Clear imaged in the softly flowing stream;
The trees beyond it, set in gracious order,
⁠The bridge, the road — delicious is the dream!

Each nook recalls fond thoughts, and memories soften
⁠My heart to those that still by them abide;
I think of those that wandered with me often —
⁠Of those who now in earth lie side by side.

Long years have rolled, and other children gladly
⁠Rove in the woods and by the waterside;
And some who walked with me may eye them sadly,
⁠And think of other days, whose light has died.

And yet it lives, and sheds a wondrous sweetness
⁠Around the ways, else darkly shaded all;
Making the heart, preparèd in all meetness,
⁠Like "darkened chamber,"^[1] when the bright rays fall:

A home of beauty, where the past is cherished,
⁠Each common thing made radiant in the light;
No gleam of love or beauty that has perished,
⁠But here, relimned, is clear to inward sight.

O for the Arran breezes!
⁠O for the sunny glow!
O for the glens and mountains!
⁠Of just ten years ago.
I see it all in fancy,
⁠As I lie with half-shut eyes,
And fairer still in dreamland,
⁠When slumber o’er me lies.

Where are the happy voices
⁠That gladden'd all the day,
And rose in songs at evening
⁠From boats across the bay?
Where is the fading splendor,
⁠That linger'd, like a smile,
Upon the peaks of Goatfell,
⁠And on the Holy Isle?

Not in my heart is envy
⁠That youth returns once more
In other forms and voices
⁠Than those I loved of yore;
Yet all my heart is craving
⁠For pleasures that are fled,
For voices of the distant,
⁠And voices of the dead.

The mist comes down on Arran,
⁠Rich in its purple dies;
I see that mist no longer,
⁠A mist is o'er my eyes.
O for the Arran breezes!
⁠O for the sunny glow!
O for the loves and friendships!
⁠Of just ten years ago.

If on the great world's wide and shifting sand
⁠I scrawl my meagre alphabet of song,
⁠What profit have I, think you? Not for long,
The pride of its enduring. Time's rough hand
Sweeps all of shadowy fabric from the strand.
⁠So children work upon the tideless shore,
⁠So poets build their pomp. The fresh tides roar,
And desolate the glory each had planned.
Then whereof comes requital? Here and there
⁠Our life's horizon clouds with new regrets;
Our palaces dissolve in thinnest air,
⁠Shiver to dust our loftiest minarets.
Yet, childlike, work we ever on the shore, —
Reap joy in building, and expect no more!

When twilight falls upon our laboring town,
And grateful bells of evening echo far;
When shadows lengthen and grow deeper brown,
And heaven uncurtaineth her earliest star
While night delays, and sunset's tempered glow
Warms the still landscape with its level ray,
Till the soft light seems ling'ring, loth to go
From that calm Indian summer of the day:
Kindling the edge of some Hesperian sky,
The sweet dawn breaks as our late sun descends,
And, marked alone by the All-Seeing Eye,
Morning with eve in solemn beauty blends:
Thus, time-touched bard, shall sunset prove to thee
The unfading morn of immortality.