Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

It was the splendid winter-tide.
And all the land was thrilling white,
And all the air was still and bright
With a solemn and songless sunshine wide,
Whose gorgeous uncongenial light
Harden'd whatever it glorified.

And while that glory was streaming amber
Into a childhood-haunted chamber,
A child, at play by the lattice-sill,
Where daily the redbreasts begging came,
Noticed a glittering icicle
That flash'd in the sun like a frozen flame.

So, plucking it off, he seized and put it
Into a box of gilded paper.
There, to be treasured for ever, shut it,
Danced about it with shout and caper,
And then, as a child will do, forgot it.

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For suddenly under the lattice roll'd
A music of cymbal and trumpet blent.
And, oh merry and brave it was to behold
The soldiers below, who in scarlet and gold
Marching blithe to the music went.

And after the soldiers, cleaving the cold
Slantwise, shot like a falling arrow,
And perch'd on the sill of the lattice, a bold,
Bright-eyed, sharp-beak'd, hungry sparrow;
Claiming, with saucy, sidelong head,
His accustom'd alms of a crumb of bread,
Tho' to get what he ask'd he would not stop,
But off, with a pert, impatient hop,
Went twittering over the roof instead.

Next follow'd far more than a man can mention
Of in-door claims on a child's attention.
And at last 'twas a whip to whip the top,
And “Oh, where is Grandfather? 'tis he must find one!”

Then away in a hurry the small feet trot,
Yet pause: for that icicle, first forgot,
And then remember'd all in a minute,
It were surely a pity to leave behind one.

So the treasure-box, with the treasure in it,
Their tiny treasurer carries away.
But ah, what sorrowful change is this

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In the box where safely the bright gem lay
Erewhile, a secretly-beaming bliss
To beautify many a winter's day?

For, drop by drop, is the drench'd box dripping,
And the gilded paper is all undone,
And, away in a shower of warm tears slipping,
The deceitful treasure is well-nigh gone.

So, weeping too, with the woeful story
(In a passion of grief unreconciled
For the lost delight of a vanisht glory)
To the old man hastens the troubled child.

II. PART II.

Lone by the old hearth was the old man sitting.
He, too, a treasure-box had on his knee;
And slowly, slowly, like sad snow-flakes flitting
Down from the weak boughs of a wither'd tree,
Fell from his tremulous fingers, wet with tears,
Into the embers of the old hearth's fire,
Wan leaves of paper yellow'd by long years:
Letters, that once were treasures.

The Grandsire
Welcomed the infant with a kind, faint smile.
The burning letters, black and wrinkled, rose
Along the gusty flue; and there awhile
(Like one who, doubtful of the way he goes,

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Lingers and hesitates) along the dark
They hover'd and delay'd their ghostly flight,
Thin sable veils wherein a restless spark
Yet trembled!—and then pass'd from human sight.

How oft had human eyes in days of yore
Above them beam'd, and with what tender light!
Wherefore, O wherefore, had those eyes no more
Upon them gazed for many a heedless year?
Was not the record which those eyes had read
With such bright rapture in each blissful tear
Still writ in the same letters, which still said
The self-same words? Ah! why not now, as then,
With the same power to brighten those changed eyes?
Why should such looks such letters meet again
As strangers? each to each a sad surprise!
“How pale,” the eyes unto the letters said,
“And wan, and weak, and yellow are ye grown!”
And to the eyes the letters, “Why so red
About the rims, and wrinkled? Eyes unknown,
Nor ever seen before, to us ye seem,
Save for a something in the depths of you
Familiar to us, like a life-like dream
So well remember'd it almost seems true!”

The grandchild weeps upon the grandsire's knee,
And babbles of his treasure fled away.
The old man listens to him patiently,
And tells the child, as tho' great news were they,

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Old tales which well the child already knows,
And smoothes his tumbled curls, and comforts him.
The winter day is darkening to its close.
On the old hearth the dying fire grows dim.

III. PART III.

The child upon the old man's breast was sleeping,
The old man stiller than the sleeping child!
Then slowly, softly, near and nearer creeping
From book-shelves dark, and dusty papers piled,
Old thoughts, old memories of the days of old,
Which lurk'd about that old room everywhere,
Hidden in many a curtain's quiet fold,
Panel, or picture-frame, or carven chair,
All silent, in the silence, one by one,
Came from between the long-unlookt-at leaves
Of old books; rose up from the old hearthstone;
Descended from the old roof's oaken eaves;
Laid spectral hand in hand by twos and threes,
And then by tens and twenties; circled dim
Around the old man, on whose tranquil knees
Still slept the infant; and, saluting him,
The eldest whisper'd, “Dost thou know us not?
Many are we who come to take farewell.
For all departs at last. Ay, even the thought
Of what hath been. Sunbeam and icicle,
Childhood and age! The joys of childhood perish
Before the heats of manhood; manhood's heats

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Before the chills of age. Whate'er ye cherish,
As whatsoe'er ye suffer, fades and fleets.
What goes not with the heat, goes with the cold.
For all that comes, goes also. What ye call
Life, is no more than dyings manifold.
All changes, all departs, all ends. All, all!”