My heart yearns for an age forgot,
A place unknown to my brain;
O, will I know that world again?

Was there a time, at mankind's birth,
When moonlight struck the primal chord
And heart touched heart without a word,
At moonrise o'er a wilder Earth?
Now barr'd by Time's dividing firth,
Were songs beyond our fallen ken
Once sung and danced, in Eden's glen?

Could we our cities but forsake,
And leave behind our broken ways;
In field and forest spend our days,
To bed in grass, and bathe in lake -
Would we a better Man-kind make,
And might we all begin again?
Or is the fault innate in Man?

Then could I shed this human guise,
And form and instinct rearrange,
Would that as well my nature change,
To see the world through other eyes?
So aches my heart, so body sighs;
Were I a wilder creature, then,
Would I know solace, in my den?