 | The Vow of the Peacock, and Other Poems |  |
The past! ah, we owe it a tenderer debt,
Heaven's own sweetest mercy is not to forget;
Its influence softens the present, and flings
A grace, like the ivy, wherever it clings.
Sad thoughts are its ministers—angels that keep
Their beauty to hallow the sorrows they weep.
The wrong, that seemed harsh to our earlier mood,
By long years with somewhat of love is subdued;—
The grief, that at first had no hope in its gloom,
Ah, flowers have at length sprung up over the tomb.
The heart hath its twilight, which softens the scene,
While memory recalls where the lovely hath been.
It builds up the ruin, restores the grey tower,
Till there looks the beauty still from her bower.
It leans o'er the fountain, and calls from the wave
The naiad that dwelt with her lute in the cave;—
It bends by the red rose, and thinketh old songs:—
That leaf to the heart of the lover belongs.
It clothes the grey tree with the green of its spring,
And brings back the music the lark used to sing.
But spirits yet dearer attend on the past,
When alone, 'mid the shadows the dim hearth has cast;
Then feelings come back, that had long lost their tone,
And echo the music that once was their own.
Then friends, whose sweet friendship the world could divide,
Come back with kind greetings, and cling to our side.
The book which we loved when our young love was strong;—
An old tree long cherished; a nursery song;—
A walk slow and pleasant by field and by wood;—
The winding 'mid water-plants of that clear flood,
Where lilies, like fairy queens, looked on their glass,—
That stream we so loved in our childhood to pass.
Oh! world of sweet phantoms, how precious thou art!
The past is perpetual youth to the heart.
Heaven's own sweetest mercy is not to forget;
Its influence softens the present, and flings
A grace, like the ivy, wherever it clings.
Sad thoughts are its ministers—angels that keep
Their beauty to hallow the sorrows they weep.
The wrong, that seemed harsh to our earlier mood,
By long years with somewhat of love is subdued;—
The grief, that at first had no hope in its gloom,
Ah, flowers have at length sprung up over the tomb.
The heart hath its twilight, which softens the scene,
While memory recalls where the lovely hath been.
5
Till there looks the beauty still from her bower.
It leans o'er the fountain, and calls from the wave
The naiad that dwelt with her lute in the cave;—
It bends by the red rose, and thinketh old songs:—
That leaf to the heart of the lover belongs.
It clothes the grey tree with the green of its spring,
And brings back the music the lark used to sing.
But spirits yet dearer attend on the past,
When alone, 'mid the shadows the dim hearth has cast;
Then feelings come back, that had long lost their tone,
And echo the music that once was their own.
Then friends, whose sweet friendship the world could divide,
Come back with kind greetings, and cling to our side.
The book which we loved when our young love was strong;—
6
A walk slow and pleasant by field and by wood;—
The winding 'mid water-plants of that clear flood,
Where lilies, like fairy queens, looked on their glass,—
That stream we so loved in our childhood to pass.
Oh! world of sweet phantoms, how precious thou art!
The past is perpetual youth to the heart.
The past is the poet's,—that world is his own;
Thence hath his music its truth and its tone.
He calls up the shadows of ages long fled,
And light, as life lovely, illumines the dead.
And the beauty of time, with wild flowers and green,
Shades and softens the world-worn, the harsh and the mean.
He lives, he creates, in those long-vanished years—
He asks of the present but audience and tears.
Thence hath his music its truth and its tone.
He calls up the shadows of ages long fled,
And light, as life lovely, illumines the dead.
And the beauty of time, with wild flowers and green,
Shades and softens the world-worn, the harsh and the mean.
He lives, he creates, in those long-vanished years—
He asks of the present but audience and tears.
| The Vow of the Peacock, and Other Poems | |