The Ash Grove

Away in the shadows a lone bird is singing,

The wind whispers low in a sighing refrain;

Their music makes memory's voices go winging:

The Ash Grove in beauty I see once again;

The voices of friends that the log years have taken,

Oh faintly I hear them, the song and the word.

How much in the heart can so little awaken:

The wind in the leaves and the song of a bird.

How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,

And time seemed to us to stretch endless away,

The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly

Could fade as a dream at the coming of day!

And still, spite of sorrow, whene'er I remember,

My thoughts will return like a bird to the nest,

No matter though summer may wane to December,

And there in the ash grove my heart be at rest.