 | Poems, original and translated |  |
THE PAST.
How oft my heart leaped up with mute delight,When, as a boy, I journeyed home at night,
To see, while trees and lights behind us fled,
The moon and stars ride with us overhead.
So with the things of time,—like dreams they glide;
The eternal things are ever at our side.
The present moments sparkle, fade, and flee;
The Past is part of God's eternity.
Once in a tropic clime I sailed away
From a steep coast across a tranquil bay;
When, lo! behind the fast-receding shore,
Up rose the inland hills, and more and more
Lifted their greeting summits, green and clear,
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So, as we voyage o'er the sea of time,
The Past looms up, mysterious and sublime;
Lifts its fair peaks into the tranquil sky,
And with its greeting follows as we fly,—
A spirit's welcome, with whose magic strain
Springs tender pleasure from remembered pain.
The Past is not all passed, not wholly dead;
Our life still echoes to its voice and tread!
The soul awakes—and, lo! like phantoms glide
The living shapes that bustle at our side:
The while our dead dwell on an inner mount,
Made green forever by the living fount,—
That Mount of Vision, where from Memory's mien
The veil falls off, and Hope's own eyes are seen;
While this imposing world's tumultuous roar
Dies in faint murmurs on an inland shore.
| Poems, original and translated | |