University of Virginia Library

XXXVI

More storm than calm, less gold than gray,
Along the years our lives must tread,
Makes sad the scenes around our way,
Makes grave the heavens overhead:
For on life's storied page, behold,
Are adumbrations of the dead!
The neutral tint Time's fingers lay
Around a tale that 's never told.
Time writes with sunshine less than rain,
With starlight less than mist, the scroll—
A thousand memories of pain
To one of joy—of his own soul:
The golden hues of life occur
In his dim palimpsest, whose whole
Death scrawls with dusty lines again,
Making of all a leaden blur.