 | Beads from a Rosary |  |
20
THE “OLD FAMILIAR FACES.”
I sigh not for the past,
For my childhood's days again;
For time hath taught how vain its dreams,
Its eager hopes how vain.
But memory oft, in musing mood,
The backward path retraces,
And shows me, through the gloom of years,
The “old familiar faces.”
For my childhood's days again;
For time hath taught how vain its dreams,
Its eager hopes how vain.
But memory oft, in musing mood,
The backward path retraces,
And shows me, through the gloom of years,
The “old familiar faces.”
I sigh not for the past:
More stedfast visions shine
Upon me now; and better hopes,
I well believe, are mine;
But the kindly friends of those young days,
The merry friends of yore,—
For them I sigh, for them I seek
The vanished past once more;
And it warms my heart, when memory thus
Her backward path retraces,
And I meet again the loving gaze
Of the “old familiar faces.”
More stedfast visions shine
Upon me now; and better hopes,
I well believe, are mine;
21
The merry friends of yore,—
For them I sigh, for them I seek
The vanished past once more;
And it warms my heart, when memory thus
Her backward path retraces,
And I meet again the loving gaze
Of the “old familiar faces.”
New friends are mine, and true,
And kindly ones as they;
And loving looks are left me still,
To cheer life's later day;
But I ne'er can feel for living friends
The gushing love I bore,
Ere the early hopes and dreams grew dim,
To the cherished ones of yore.
And with tearful eyes, when memory thus
Her backward path retraces,
I turn from living smiles, to greet
The “old familiar faces.”
And kindly ones as they;
And loving looks are left me still,
To cheer life's later day;
But I ne'er can feel for living friends
The gushing love I bore,
Ere the early hopes and dreams grew dim,
To the cherished ones of yore.
And with tearful eyes, when memory thus
Her backward path retraces,
I turn from living smiles, to greet
The “old familiar faces.”
| Beads from a Rosary | |