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“LONG AGO,”
ADDRESSED TO ------
I.
Long ago!—long ago!How heavily on the heart
The simple accents flow!—
Yet is there music in the sound,
A witching charm not elsewhere found,
That makes us love the woe!
II.
How at the words Imagination fondFlies to the Pictures of the Past,
In Memory's gallery cast ;
Which, like the gloomy clouds that dimly hang
Motionless, in skies of grey,
And seem to threaten less than they despond—
Pause ere they pass away.
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May there with sad delight be seen—
The light and shade of years of old—
And many an hour in sunshine or in rain,
Of sport, employment, mirth or pain,
With melancholy joy beheld again!
III.
But where's the penBy which the difference can be told
'Twixt now and then!
The hopes, the fears,
The smiles, the tears,
The fond pursuits of other years,
Are past and gone!
Our interest in them done.
The friends that once were dear
Have long in silence ebbed away—
And every-thing that once was all in all
Does trifling now appear—
Remembered scarce to-day.
We needs must mourn their transient sway,
And yet cannot but love whatever may remain
Of feelings, forms, and scenes that we
Through life and long Eternity
Can never meet again!
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IV.
The Soul where'er her sunny homeMingles with it, fondly clings,
And lovingly her tendrils flings
On all the beauties round;
And though perhaps compelled to roam,
And though another home be found,
She loves full oft to fly on Memory's wings,
And mournfully renew her former communings.
V.
The Earth, the glorious gladsome Earth—From her our soul-linked clay had birth!
And when her magic influence steals
The Heart, what is it that it feels
But the Child's longings, ill-exprest
Deep yearnings for its Mother's breast,
There to be again at rest!
In these renewals of her power,
Earth recalls our natal hour,
Stirs us with mysterious might,
And reasserts her primal right.
And wherever Love hath been
Between us and some olden scene,
Nature will not let it die,
But rebinds the broken tie,
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And makes it sweet our view to cast
O'er long-closed pages of existence past!
VI.
The Present is a Mine,From which we dig the mingled ore,
Rude though it be and gross;—
Then Time extracts the worthless dross,
And leaves it dull no more!
And then the rich, refinëd hoard,
In the coffers of the Past is stored,
Where in radiant rows they stand,
Arranged for pensive Memory's hand—
A fairer show,
Than e'er did glow
In gorgeous faëry tale of sweet Arabia's land.
VII.
The Present is a Stream,That sweeps along, a varying tide—
Now dancing on in Pleasure's beam,
Now tost by Passion, swoln by Pride!
And troubled waves of Strife are there,
And bitter waves of Grief and Care!—
Dim with Woe or foul with Crime,
These are filtered well by Time!
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He leaves a lake, transparent—mild!
Then, in some silent hour,
When nature sinks in deep repose,
In summer's sultry noon;
Or when a stillness more intense she knows,
And swims in tears the weary Moon;—
The first, the rapturous Sleep of Joy,
Faint with its own excess—
The last, the musing Wakefulness of Woe,
Full, full of tenderness—
In such an hour comes Memory there
Her golden cup to fill;
And dipping in the streamlet fair,
Quaffs with serenest joy the clearly-gushing rill.
VIII.
Then why the deeds of TimeComplainingly decry?
Why say that all his triumphs
Only ask a sigh?
All the victories of years
Merit jubilees of tears?
Why declare
He will not spare
Aught save relics here and there,
Crumbling fragments, passing fair!
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The simple—the sublime—
And all-enduring Records of the Majesty of Mind!
Pillar and stone and column gray
Melt beneath his touch away!
See how in ruin forlornly they stand—
Mournfully lingering all alone—
Sighing for a world that's gone!
Why tarry they here in a Stranger-land,
With a race that knows them not?
Their eloquent stillness seems to say
They would follow those who are past away,
Those who joyed in their loveliness ages ago,
But have forsaken them in their woe,
Left them to decay!
IX.
And must we thus in melancholy toneAll the deeds of Time bemoan?
Cheerlessly in him behold
Circumfluous Ocean ruinous round all Creation rolled—
Silent, ever-pressing zone
Wrapping in corrosive fold
This rotund World with life encrusted;
Till Titanean Might o'erthrown
Beauty blighted, Glory rusted—
New is old, and old is gone,
The things that are, are things that were—the things that were, unknown?
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Of the deeds that Time can do!
View him slowly veiling Sadness,
Mellowing the hues of Gladness;
Making Danger's memory dear,
Softening what was harsh, when near;
Turning, like the King of old,
All things, by his touch, to gold!
'Tis his refining hand can make
Our weary Days the semblance take
Of moonlit waves in a vessel's wake—
Dark while around they dash in spray,
Not lighted up till they're past away!
He teaches those who do not spurn
The Sadness of Delight,
From what is to what was to turn,
And oft in vision not unpleasant,
By dreamy day or stirless night,
Chequer the gloom that purples o'er the Present
With the Past's mild streaks of light!
X.
Roll on, then, swift Days, roll!Be ye dark, or be ye bright,
Be whate'er it may your goal—
Is it not a treasure
To discover in your flight
But material of pleasure,
Increase of delight?—
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“Whither, whither will you stray?
Sure this idle, rambling rhyme
Wasteth words and loseth time!
To you whatever it may be
Small interest it can have for me!”
Shall I tell a simple plan
Will do more than fancy can?
Give it interest for you,
Haply make you read it through?—
List!—the spell you soon shall know—
Deem it idle, rambling rhyme,
Waste of words and loss of time;
Only wait, though many a day,
And pass it by, till you can say
“It was written long ago!”
April, 1831.
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