Thou Bidst Me Sing.

Thou bidst me sing the lay I sung to thee In other days ere joy had left this brow; But think, tho' still unchanged the notes may be, How different feels the heart that breathes them now! The rose thou wearst to-night is still the same We saw this morning on its stem so gay; But, ah! that dew of dawn, that breath which came Like life o'er all its leaves, hath past away. Since first that music touched thy heart and mine, How many a joy and pain o'er both have past,— The joy, a light too precious long to shine,— The pain, a cloud whose shadows always last. And tho' that lay would like the voice of home Breathe o'er our ear, 'twould waken now a sigh— Ah! not, as then, for fancied woes to come, But, sadder far, for real bliss gone by.