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Anonymous translation
A DREAM wafts me back to childhood, | |
| And I shake my hoary head. | |
| How ye crowd on my soul, ye visions | |
| I thought were forever fled! | |
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| There glistens o’er dusky foliage | 5 |
| A lordly pile elate; | |
| I know those towers and turrets, | |
| The bridges, the massive gate. | |
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| Welcoming, kindly faces | |
| The armorial lions show; | 10 |
| I greet each old acquaintance | |
| As in through the arch I go. | |
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| There lies the Sphinx at the fountain; | |
| There darkly the fig-tree gleams; | |
| ’T was yonder, behind those windows, | 15 |
| I was rapt in my earliest dreams. | |
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| I enter the chapel, and look for | |
| My ancestor’s hallowed grave; | |
| ’T is here, and on yonder pillar | |
| Is hanging his antique glaive. | 20 |
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| I try to decipher the legend, | |
| But a mist is upon my eyes, | |
| Though the light from the painted window | |
| Full on the marble lies. | |
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| Home of my fathers, how plainly | 25 |
| Thou standest before me now! | |
| Yet thou from the earth art vanished, | |
| And over thee goes the plough. | |
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| Fruitful, dear earth, be thou ever; | |
| My fondest blessings on thee! | 30 |
| And a double blessing go with him | |
| That ploughs thee, whoe’er he be. | |
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| For me, to my destiny yielding, | |
| I will go with my harp in my hand, | |
| And wander the wide world over, | 35 |
| Singing from land to land. | |
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