From
'January', The Shepherd's Calendar (1827):
Oh! Spirit of the days gone by—
The witching spells of winter nights,
Sweet childhood’s fearful ecstacy!
Where are they fled with their delights?
When list’ning on the corner seat,
The winter evening’s length to cheat,
I heard my mother’s memory tell
Tales Superstition loves so well:—
Things said or sung a thousand times,
In simple prose or simpler rhymes!
Ah! where is page of poesy
So sweet as this was wont to be?
The magic wonders that deceived,
When fictions were as truths believed;
The fairy feats that once prevail’d,
Told to delight, and never fail’d:
Where are they now, their fears and sighs,
And tears from founts of happy eyes?
I read in books, but find them not,
For Poesy hath its youth forgot:
I hear them told to children still,
But fear numbs not my spirits chill:
I still see faces pale with dread,
While mine could laugh at what is said;
See tears imagined woes supply,
While mine with real cares are dry.
Where are they gone?—the joys and fears,
The links, the life of other years?
I thought they twined around my heart
So close, that we could never part;
But Reason, like a winter’s day,
Nipp’d childhood’s visions all away,
Nor left behind one withering flower
To cherish in a lonely hour.
