The Exile

With drooping heart he turn'd away
To seek a distant clime,
Where friends were kind, and life was gay,
In early boyhood's time.
And still with years and seas between,
To one fond hope he clung--
To see once more, as he had seen,
The home he loved when young.

His youthful brow was touch'd with thought,
And life had lost its morn,
When glad again the wanderer sought
The soil where he was born.
Alas! that long expected shore
Denied the wonted joy,
And the man felt not, as of yore
Had felt the happier boy.

For formal friends scarce grasp'd his hand--
The friends he knew of old;
What cared he for a sunny land,
If human hearts were cold?
Again he cast his alter'd lot
'Mid alien tribes to roam;
And fail'd to find another spot
So foreign as his home.

His heavy grief no bosom shared,
No eye would weep his fall;
What matter if his life were spared,
Who lived unloved by all!
And when had ceased his earthly toil
Upon that distant shore,
His bones were gather'd to the soil--
His heart had died before.