Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | ||
[XXI. A moment since his breath dissolved in air]
A moment since his breath dissolved in air!And now divorced from life's last hectic glow,
He joins the old ghostly years of long ago,
In some cloud-folded realm of vague despair;
Ah me! the unsceptred years that wander there!
With cold, wan hands, and faces white as snow,
And echoes of dead voices quavering low
The phantom-burden of long-perished care!
Perchance all unsubstantialized and gray,
Time's earliest year now greets his last, deceased;
Or he that dumbly gazed on Adam's fall,
Palely emerging from the shadowy east,
With flickering semblance of cold crown and pall,
Clothes the dim ghost of him just passed away!
Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | ||