Upon an eminence I seem to stand,
And look around me. Backward I survey
A lovely prospect, stretching far away
Through mists that curtain all the nearer land.
There once I wandered gayly, hand in hand
With the companions of my happy spring;
It was Life's realm of Fairy, rainbow-spanned,
Where birds and brooks together loved to sing,
And every cloud made pictures as it sailed.
That music yet resounds, those pictures shine
Through the far distance Time has faintly veiled,
Though many a rock, stream, valley intervene
Between me and that fairy-haunted scene.