To pass the Midnight watching pale,

Yet tremble when the day appears:

I shall come again-a stranger,

To all that once I knew;

From the hurried steps of manhood,

From life's flower have dashed the dew.

I yet may ask their welcome,

And return from whence I came;

But a change is wrought within me,

They will not seem the same.

For my spirits are grown weary,

And my days of youth are over;

And the mirth of that glad season,

Is what I can feel no more...