Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, <br />Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; <br />Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, <br />With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod; <br />With those who, scattered far, perchance deplore, <br />Like me, the happy scenes they knew before: <br />Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill, <br />Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, <br />Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay, <br />And frequent mused the twilight hours away; <br />Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, <br />But ah! without the thoughts which then were mine. <br />How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, <br />Invite the bosom to recall the past, <br />And seem to whisper, as the gently swell, <br />"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!" <br /> <br />When fate shall chill, at length, this fevered breast, <br />And calm its cares and passions into rest, <br />Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour,— <br />If aught may soothe when life resigns her power,— <br />To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell, <br />Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell. <br />With this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to die— <br />And here it lingered, here my heart might lie; <br />Here might I sleep, where all my hopes arose, <br />Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; <br />For ever stretched beneath this mantling shade, <br />Pressed by the turf where once my childhood played; <br />Wrapped by the soil that veils the spot I loved, <br />Mixed with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved; <br />Blest by the tongues that charmed my youthful ear, <br />Mourned by the few my soul acknowledged here; <br />Deplored by those in early days allied, <br />And unremembered by the world beside.<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-written-beneath-an-elm-in-the-churchyard-o/
