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 e'er 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!