The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker ... Edited with a memoir of the author by the Rev. J. Moultrie |
FRAGMENT. |
The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker | ||
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FRAGMENT.
[“Those days are past;—and it is now]
“Those days are past;—and it is nowA place where all may come and go;
To which the tide of travellers flows,
For transient mirth, or brief repose:
All pressing to some onward aim,
They come, and vanish as they came:
The mansion hath in them no share,
Their hopes, their loves are all elsewhere.
No legends gather round its halls,
No household genii haunt its walls.
But yet to me, where'er I roam,
O'er that estranged and altered home,
O'er sacred hearth, and social room,
And echoing threshold, and the gloom
Of staircase old, o'er ivied towers,
And gardens bright with summer flowers,
O'er floor and roof, o'er wall and bed,
The glory of the Past is spread,
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To which the noonday sun is night.
And if indeed, as Christians say,
The unbodied soul must live for aye,
I think that mine, where'er it be,
Will keep, through its eternity,
In joy or sorrow, unremoved,
The image of that place beloved.”
The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker | ||