John Watson Dalby

WATERS! all calm and bright as heaven above,

In peace and beauty still your course pursuing;

Ruins! and ye wild springs! that fondly love

To throw a deathless sweetness over ruin;

Hills! o’er whose brows in other days we bounded

When fresh delight was in our hearts and eyes,

And all that lay before us or surrounded,

Shone with a beauty heightened by surprise:

Had earth a stray bliss, then the quick sense found it,

From morn’s first blush to ray of evening star;

And then the natural revel well we rounded,

Lifting full cups to loving hearts afar.

Well may our own faint, staggered and astounded,

At thought of what and where those loved ones are.