I cannot forget with what fervid devotion <br />I worshipped the vision of verse and of fame. <br />Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean, <br />To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame. <br /> <br />And deep were my musings in life's early blossom, <br />Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long; <br />How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom, <br />When o'er me descended the spirit of song. <br /> <br />'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened <br />To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, <br />Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened, <br />All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene; <br /> <br />Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing, <br />From his throne in the depth of that stern solitude, <br />And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest of feeling, <br />Strains lofty or tender, though artless and rude. <br /> <br />Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded; <br />No longer your pure rural worshipper now; <br />In the haunts your continual presence pervaded, <br />Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. <br /> <br />In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain, <br />In deep lonely glens where the waters complain, <br />By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain, <br />I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain. <br /> <br />Oh, leave not, forlorn and for ever forsaken, <br />Your pupil and victim to life and its tears! <br />But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken <br />The glories ye showed to his earlier years.<br /><br />William Cullen Bryant<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-cannot-forget-with-what-fervid-devotion/
