University of Virginia Library

DEPARTED JOYS.

We toil along this weary heavy Waste
With our best joys left in the darkened Past
Far, far behind—Oh! what wild grief, what pain
This draught of fire which yet we oft must drain,
The thought that never more can be our own,
The dearest hopes and pleasures we have known,
For these are still the earliest—nor can bear
The lightest breath of Life's more bitter air,
When doubt and sin, suspense and freezing fear
Make these fair leaves of fragrance pale and sere,
Those fair but frailest flowers, their life was done
Soon as one cloud came floating o'er the Sun—
Our after joys are hardier—and can dare
The unkindly breath of this World's blighting air,
And ev'n survive the shock of storms, perchance,
If yet from time to time one golden glance
Down from the Sun of Hope enkindling shoots,
To warm them to their deep embedded roots—
But Oh! though fitted to our trying fate,
They are not dear as those more delicate—
Those tenderer and more fragile ones that fade
If but one moment thrown into the shade,
They are the treasured of the Soul, the dear
Beyond all others that may bless us here.
And Oh! the thought that they ne'er come again
Is as a draught of fire which we must drain
In sadness and in sorrow evermore—
That thrill and rankle in the heart's sick core.
Memory, forbear to bring them thus in view—
The retrospective eye which tears bedew
Hails them too fondly, faithfully for peace—
Oh! Memory—but thy persecutions cease,
Nor come with cruel keenness, to remind
How bright these joys were, which are left behind,
Which never more can gladden us below,
And whose remembrance makes our weal seem woe,
Our present weal, so poor with that compared,
Which in those hours of rainbow-light we shared!
When all was transport—mystery of delight—
And all was ecstacy to Soul and Sight—
Oh! leave us to the Present, let us cling
To each consoling and each cherished thing,
Nor turn distracted ev'n from Hope away,
Because less bright than on a former day,
Our present pleasures were enough, could we
Forget but those that dwell in Memory.
Farther and farther must we pass from those
Ere yet we come indeed unto the close,
But yet they sadly shine out to the last,
And shed their mournful Beauty o'er Life's waste,
While all our other joys in turn decay,
And leave but graceless wrecks to strew our way;
Those earliest, loveliest, happiest, dearest, best,
Assert their gentle sway above the rest—
And make our yearning Spirits long once more
To feel that freshness which they felt before,
That glow of confidence, that hush of peace,
That buoyant energy in glad increase,
Which bore them onwards as with wings of fire,
That could not cease to soar—that could not tire,
At least so deemed they, but in vain, in vain,
They faultering fell—and not to rise again!
But when the weary time indeed is o'er,
The time of tears and sighs and sufferings sore—
The Soul shall then regain its long lost youth,
Its strength, its calm, its confidence, and truth—
And joys more pure know then, than it may know
It its first bloom of young delight below!