 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
THE VALLEY ROAD
By this road have past
Hope and Joy adance;
And one at dark fled fast,
Quick breath, and look askance;
And in this dust have dropt
Tears that never stopt.
Hope and Joy adance;
And one at dark fled fast,
Quick breath, and look askance;
And in this dust have dropt
Tears that never stopt.
Childhood, caught by flowers,
Cannot choose but dally;
Slowly through the hours
Age creeps down the valley;
Only Youth goes swift—
Eager, and head alift.
Cannot choose but dally;
Slowly through the hours
Age creeps down the valley;
Only Youth goes swift—
Eager, and head alift.
Summer, and the night,
Calm and cloudless moon,
And lo! a path of light!
Heaven would come too soon
To lovers wandering slowly
Through the starlight holy.
Calm and cloudless moon,
And lo! a path of light!
Heaven would come too soon
To lovers wandering slowly
Through the starlight holy.
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And by this road was borne,—
Betwixt sweet banks of fern,
And willow rows, and corn,—
He, who will return
Not, tho' others may,
The old, familiar way.
Betwixt sweet banks of fern,
And willow rows, and corn,—
He, who will return
Not, tho' others may,
The old, familiar way.
Two streams within these walls
For ever and ever flow;
Back and forth the current falls,
The long processions go;
A hundred years have flown,
The human tides pour on—
For ever and ever flow;
Back and forth the current falls,
The long processions go;
A hundred years have flown,
The human tides pour on—
And shall, when you and I
Pass no more again.
Beneath the bending sky
Shall be no lack of men;
Never the road run bare,
Tho' other feet may fare.
Pass no more again.
Beneath the bending sky
Shall be no lack of men;
Never the road run bare,
Tho' other feet may fare.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |