 | The Burden of the Bell and Other Lyrics |  |
202
THE LONG AGO.
A spirit walks beside me, pale but fair,
With still face shaded by dim-floating hair;
And ever, at brief intervals, while loud
Resound the strife and tumult of the crowd,
While the absorbing Present sternly claims
All my devotion, all my hopes and aims,
She bids me, in a whisper soft and low,
“Give one kind memory to the long ago!”
With still face shaded by dim-floating hair;
And ever, at brief intervals, while loud
Resound the strife and tumult of the crowd,
While the absorbing Present sternly claims
All my devotion, all my hopes and aims,
She bids me, in a whisper soft and low,
“Give one kind memory to the long ago!”
No other speech hath she—unchangeable,
One aspect for all times, fixed, and yet full
Of a most tender pleading;—so, when stand
New friends around me, a belovëd band,
When cordial words from lip to lip are passed,
Light jests, or graver fancies, overcast
With a calm pensiveness;—when heart to heart
Confides its stored-up treasures—still, apart,
Filling the pauses, pleads that whisper low,
“One memory for the friends of long ago!”
One aspect for all times, fixed, and yet full
Of a most tender pleading;—so, when stand
New friends around me, a belovëd band,
When cordial words from lip to lip are passed,
Light jests, or graver fancies, overcast
With a calm pensiveness;—when heart to heart
Confides its stored-up treasures—still, apart,
Filling the pauses, pleads that whisper low,
“One memory for the friends of long ago!”
203
Alike, when roaming through new lands, I climb
Wood-cinctured mountains, in the golden time
Of summer, scanning, with enamoured gaze
Plains, vallies, pastures, gleaming through the haze;
Tracts, by primeval forests overrun,
Or populous cities, sleeping in the sun;
Out of the hush that whisper seems to grow,
Like the wind's murmur. with as sweet a flow—
“One memory, for the scenes of long ago!”
Wood-cinctured mountains, in the golden time
Of summer, scanning, with enamoured gaze
Plains, vallies, pastures, gleaming through the haze;
Tracts, by primeval forests overrun,
Or populous cities, sleeping in the sun;
Out of the hush that whisper seems to grow,
Like the wind's murmur. with as sweet a flow—
“One memory, for the scenes of long ago!”
And ever, when I hear it, the dead Past
Throws off its cerements; visions, thick and fast,
Throng round me—friends, I left on the far strand
Of orient childhood, from that halcyon land
Gaze on me, greet me, bid me taste once more
The sweet and simple happiness of yore.
And my lost home smiles at me, through the shade
Of the apple-branches—its grey walls arrayed
With bloom of climbing roses, or broad leaves
Of vine and ivy, and beneath the eaves
Just the one swallow's nest—the same—I hear,
Methinks, the young birds' twitter, shrill and clear,
In the fresh morning . . . Oh! kind spirit, stay
For ever by my side, through life's rude way!
Throws off its cerements; visions, thick and fast,
Throng round me—friends, I left on the far strand
Of orient childhood, from that halcyon land
Gaze on me, greet me, bid me taste once more
The sweet and simple happiness of yore.
And my lost home smiles at me, through the shade
Of the apple-branches—its grey walls arrayed
With bloom of climbing roses, or broad leaves
Of vine and ivy, and beneath the eaves
Just the one swallow's nest—the same—I hear,
Methinks, the young birds' twitter, shrill and clear,
In the fresh morning . . . Oh! kind spirit, stay
For ever by my side, through life's rude way!
204
Ne'er let the Present's joys, the Future's dreams,
Possess me wholly: still by those hushed streams
And phantom-peopled meadows let me roam,
In the dim shadow-world which is thy home.
Come chance, come change, unmoved through all be thou,
The same true faithful monitor as now;
And till Death beckons me, with ghostly hand,
Into the mysteries of his shadow-land,
O heart of mine, nor cold, nor careless grow,
In welcome of that warning whisper low—
“One thought, one memory, give the long ago!”
Possess me wholly: still by those hushed streams
And phantom-peopled meadows let me roam,
In the dim shadow-world which is thy home.
Come chance, come change, unmoved through all be thou,
The same true faithful monitor as now;
And till Death beckons me, with ghostly hand,
Into the mysteries of his shadow-land,
O heart of mine, nor cold, nor careless grow,
In welcome of that warning whisper low—
“One thought, one memory, give the long ago!”
| The Burden of the Bell and Other Lyrics | |