Old Year Leaves Being Old Verses Revised: By H. T. Mackenzie Bell ... New Edition |
 |
 |
|
|
| I. |
| II. | SCENE II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
|
|
|
 | Old Year Leaves |  |
67
SCENE II.
A quiet summer evening. Alethea standing in a secluded part of the garden of her home adjacent to an old plantation. Time.—A few days before the day fixed for her marriage.Alethea.
A few days more! Ah what a change for me,
A happy change! O kind few days that bring it—
A blissful change! Speed swift bright days that bring it,—
A change the sense of which thrills through my soul,
And makes it burst its bonds and soar in song.
A few days more, a few days more,
Ah what a change for me!
Then I shall enter through Love's door
To full felicity.
No more alone to bear one fear,
Or have an untold dread,
To leave my path, his sweet voice hear
And choose his path instead.
Ah what a change for me!
Then I shall enter through Love's door
To full felicity.
68
Or have an untold dread,
To leave my path, his sweet voice hear
And choose his path instead.
A few days more, then it will be
My duty to obey,—
A duty pleasant, joyous, free
As warbler's winsome lay.
I'll seek to do each fond behest,
To merit each fond smile,—
I'll strive to make his life more blest
His sadness to beguile.
My duty to obey,—
A duty pleasant, joyous, free
As warbler's winsome lay.
I'll seek to do each fond behest,
To merit each fond smile,—
I'll strive to make his life more blest
His sadness to beguile.
He praises oft my sunny hair,
And lauds my peach-bloom cheeks,—
I would I were far far more fair
When thus my dear one speaks.
I feel unworthy him, and yet
He takes me for his wife,—
I'll yield to him—to pay my debt—
The service of my life.
And lauds my peach-bloom cheeks,—
I would I were far far more fair
When thus my dear one speaks.
I feel unworthy him, and yet
He takes me for his wife,—
I'll yield to him—to pay my debt—
The service of my life.
69
Of sylvan solitude! The tall old oaks
Near which I stand have seen full many a year,
And sheltered many a maiden such as I
Beneath their branches, and in future time
Will shelter many more. My favourite flower,
The white convolvulus, climbs in the hedge
In spotless beauty as it used to do
In summers long gone by; and as it will,
Fanned by the breath of summers yet to come;
Nature is all unchanged, and yet to me
How changed it seems to-night! Despite my joy
A curious sense of sadness steals upon me,
When I reflect that guileless happy days
Of thoughtless youth are now for ever past,
That though life's grandest, highest, gift is mine,
A love returned tenfold, yet doubtless too
A share of sorrow is appointed me!
| Old Year Leaves | |