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Poems and Essays

By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton)

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THE GOLDEN DAYS.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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36

THE GOLDEN DAYS.

Dark-eyed Helen, when I loved thee
In the green year's early prime;
When I loved thee and approved thee,
In the sunny April time;
Swiftly the delightful season
Over our young heads did pass;
Much of love we then did reason,
Or read the Poets in the grass.
I remember, that sweet Easter,
How the cuckoo overhead
Perched, and, singing, never ceased her
Ill-betiding note of dread.
I remember how we laughed then
That the bird should waste her throat,
Yet our strained ears had not quaffed then
Philomel's enchanting note.
Nor any love's still-burning ember
Have here these idle verses sung;—
But only that we might remember
The golden days when we were young.

37

Oh, golden days, untouched by sorrow,
Fair, fair, you shine from where I stand,
The tenant of a bitter morrow,
And dweller in a different land.