ls and dales among;
But, oh, it needs no Puck to put,
With whipping wing and flying foot,
A girdle 'round the narrow sphere
In which I labor now and here!
Life's face was fair when careless I
First loved beneath an April sky,
And wept those fine-imagined woes
That youth at nineteen thinks it knows;
Now love and woe both run so deep
I have not any time to weep.
No matter; though at last we see
That what was could not always be,
It girds our loins and steels our hands
In duller days and smaller lands
To recollect the country where
The world was wide and life was fair.
Reginald Wright Kauffman [1877-
TEMPLE GARLANDS
There is a temple in my heart
Where moth or rust can never come,
A temple swept and set apart,
To make my soul a home.
And round about the doors of it
Hang garlands that forever last,
That gathered once are always sweet;
The roses of the Past!
A. Mary F. Robinson [1857-
TIME LONG PAST
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last,--
That Time long past.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.
Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]
"I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER"
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And though the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Hea
|