Lines on Revisiting Cathcart

Oh! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,Ye green waving woods on the margin of Cart,How blest in the morning of life I have strayed,By the stream of the vale and the grass-covered glade!

Then, then every rapture was young and sincere,Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimmed by a tear,And a sweeter delight every scene seemed to lend,That the mansion of peace was the home of a friend.

Now the scenes of my childhood and dear to my heart,All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease,For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace.

But hushed be the sigh that untimely complains,While Friendship and all its enchantment remains,While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime,Untainted by chance, unabated by time.