In childhood, sitting in the garden shade
By flowering citron, or pink almond tree,
When the spring’s breath, that round the arbor played,
My neck caressing, tossed my tresses free—
A voice I heard, so sweet, so wild, and deep,
Joy thrilled my frame that owned its magic spell;
’Twas not the wind—the bell—the reed’s soft sweep—
Nor infant’s voice, nor man’s, in murmuring swell—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit communed then with mine!
When later, from a lover doomed to part,
Past those dear hours when by the shade we met,
When his last kiss resounded to the heart
That ’neath his hand’s fond pressure, trembled yet—
The self-same voice, deep in my bosom pleading,
Rang in mine ear with still entrancing power;
’Twas not his tone, ’twas not his step receding—
Nor lovers’ echoed songs in trelliced bower;—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit communed still with mine!
When, a young mother, round my peaceful hearth
I brought those gifts which bounteous heaven had sent,
While at my door the fig-tree flung the earth
Its fruits, by hands of eager children bent—
A voice, vague, tender, swelled within my breast—
’Twas not the wild bird’s note, the cock’s shrill cry—
Nor breath of infants in their cradled rest;
Nor fishers’ chant, blent with the surge’s sigh;—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit mixed its song with mine!
Now lone and old, with scattered locks and white,
The wood my shelter from the tempest’s sweep,
My shrivelled hands warmed by the fires they light,
My gentle kids, my infant charge I keep.
That hidden voice, yet in this breast forlorn,
Enchants, consoles me with its ceaseless song;
It is no more the voice of life’s young morn,
Nor his fond tone whom I have wept so long:
My guardian genius! still—yes, still ’tis thine!
’Tis thou, whose spirit dwells and mourns with mine!