 | Songs in the twilight |  |
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SONNETS.
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PAST AND PRESENT.
I
Old scenes are here; here is the ivied grange,And here the lake, the valley, and the hill,
The wood, the stream that turns the busy mill—
The same as when by them I used to range.
Though years have fled, yet nothing looketh strange,
And as I gaze the Past seems with me still;
The Past! the thought of which has power to thrill—
The same, yet not the same. There is a change,
And all around a different aspect wears.
What is it? Friends, the good and true, are gone,
And with them gone the charm of happy years,
And much that hope had fondly built upon;
So from my heart well up unbidden tears,
For dear ones who have left me one by one.
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II
Ah me! I sicken for the dear old days,When friends and youth and joy enriched the time,
And all came well: summer, or winter's rime,
December's cold, or sweet and blooming Mays,
The stretch of wold, or shady forest-ways,
Scent of bright gorse, or wafts of fragrant thyme,
Silence of noon, or birds' song in the Lime;
And yet I feel the old charm as I gaze—
'Tis gone! departed with the friends, who lie
Nearer than all to hearts that yearn in vain,
To keep them still,—not keeping them to die:—
'Twas they who made the light of days gone by.
Our crown of sorrow this,—its keenest pain,—
Loved ones must go, and only things remain.
III
Yet be it so. Glide on, thou rushing stream;Raise still your tops to heaven, ye sunlit hills;
Flash down the mountain's side, ye foaming rills;
And wear, ye valleys, still your radiant gleam,
The tender beauty of the Painter's dream.
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Lost for a time to touch and ear and eye;
And passed a moment from our loving sight,
But yet to be restored to our embrace.
For if like them we seek the true and right,
Clad in the strength of love's transcendent grace,
And climb the upward path from height to height,
We too shall stand where God's uplifted face
Fills all high heaven's sphere with holy light.
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LIFE.
O Life, Life, Life! O full and bounteous Life!Bright with thy glowing suns and mellow moons,
And homes with smiles and happy faces rife;
Fair morns, and tender eves, and amber noons,—
I love thee and this upper world, the flowers,
The woods, the dells, the streams, and grassy glade,
The quiet forest-paths where leafy bowers
By interlacing boughs are greenly made.
Well love I too the joyous birds' sweet song,
That fills the copses in the budding spring;
Yet for a higher life than this I long,
Which will with it a true completeness bring;
And did the Dove's swift power to me belong,
I'd prune for upward flight my rapid wing.
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DEATH.
O Death, Death, Death! unlovely, cruel Death!Grim King of Terrors, with thy barbèd dart!
Why should I fear thee, dreadful though thou art,
Or speak thy name with low and bated breath,
And eyes that fill with swelling tears beneath
Their quivering lids, as throbs my timid heart?
Why should I shrink at thought of thee, or start?
What though thy curse still sadly lingereth?
Nought art thou but the travail pangs before
The birth which ushers in a higher life;
The surge which bears the vessel to that shore
Where storms shall rage no more, and joys are rife;
A Port of quiet rest for evermore,
Beyond the reach of sorrow, sin, and strife.
| Songs in the twilight | |