 | This, that and the other |  |
EIGHTEEN TO-DAY.
My birth-day! Here I go, drifting down the stream of time,
with the wrecks floating upon its swollen tide, and the buried
hopes sleeping beneath, like entombed human creatures, lifting
up their pale faces, and staring with their ghastly eyes.
Here and there, bedded in pearls and coral, lie tufts of old-time
memories — the heart's forget-me-nots!
As I look behind me, I see dim, shadowy floating islands of
pleasure, peopled with forms that have made glorious my dreams.
And there, beyond, rise cold, gray cliffs, where, in unguarded
hours of storm and tempest, I have been transfixed with thunderbolts,
and woke to life again by the fierce cries of demons.
But a hand of mercy has drawn a veil before the joys and
sorrows of the past. It is a bright, rosy veil of mist, and they
gleam faintly through it, like the dim, soft outlines of a far-off
picture; but the joys make not my heart beat quicker, nor do
the griefs bring back a pang of fear. My Father looks on me
from heaven, and the past, with its sins and errors, is a dead
body, a cold corpse. It cannot rise again to haunt me; I am
strong now, and my heart sings, though my tired feet bear me
onward as chief mourner at the burial of days that were!
| This, that and the other | |