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Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Long Years Have Past Since Last I Stood
Work rating: Medium

LONG years have past since last I stood 
	Alone amid this mountain scene,
	Unlike the future which I dreamed,
	How like my future it has been!
	A cold grey sky o`erhung with clouds,
	With showers in every passing shade,
	How like the moral atmosphere
	Whose gloom my horoscope has made!

	I thought if yet my weary feet
	Could rove my native hills again,
	A world of feeling would revive,
	Sweet feelings wasted, worn in vain.
	My early hopes, my early joys,
	I dreamed those valleys would restore;
	I asked for childhood to return,
	For childhood, which returns no more.

	Surely the scene itself is changed!
	There did not always rest as now
	That shadow in the valley`s depth,
	That gloom upon the mountain-brow.
	Wild flowers within the chasms dwelt
	Like treasures in stone fairy hold,
	And morning o`er the mountains shed
	Her kindling world of vapoury gold.

	Another season of the year
	Is now upon the earth and me;
	Another spring will light these hills—
	No other spring mine own may be:
	I must retune my unstrung harp,
	I must awake the sleeping tomb,
	I must recall the loved and lost,
	Ere spring again for me could bloom.

	I`ve wandered, but it was in vain,
	In many a far and foreign clime,
	Absence is not forgetfulness,
	And distance cannot vanquish time.
	One face was ever in my sight,
	One voice was ever on my ear,
	From all earth`s loveliness I turned
	To wish, Ah that the dead were here!

	Oh! weary wandering to no home,
	Oh! weary wandering alone,
	I turned to childhood`s once glad scenes
	And found life`s last illusion flown.
	Ah! those who left their childhood`s scenes
	For after-years of toil and pain,
	Who but bring back the breaking heart
	Should never seek those scenes again.
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