The bird and the bell, with other poems | ||
294
TO W. W. S.
So many years have passed, so far awayYou seem, since arm in arm and eye to eye
We talked together, while the great blue sky
Of Rome smiled over us day after day,
Or on the flower-starred villa grounds we lay
Beneath the pines, while poesy and art
And mirth lent us one common mind and heart
So long ago! while we are growing gray,
And neither knows the life the other leads,
Shut in our separate spheres of thought and change.
Friend of my youth, how oft my spirit needs
The old, responsive voice! Silence is strange,
That so conspires with Time. O, let us break
The spell, and speak, at least for old love's sake!
New York, April 9, 1870.
The bird and the bell, with other poems | ||