LONG AGO.

We wandered in a garden fair,

When summer sun was shining,

And laden was the balmy air

With scent of roses rich and rare

Around us intertwining.

There trilled the thrush his glorious song;

There thrilled the echoes all night long

The warbling nightingale.

You taught me all each songster said,

And in each floweret’s heart you read

Some hidden tale;

You said their message I should know:

’Twas simple as an easy rhyme—

But that was once upon a time

Long ago!

We parted in a woodland glade

When autumn winds were sighing,

In gold and russet bright arrayed

A glowing canopy displayed

The summer leaves a-dying;

And but the wind, no other sound

Than a leaf that fluttered to the ground,

And a far-off robin singing,

We heard. You guessed my thoughts, and said:

‘In spring, the swallows who have fled

Will back be winging;

The trees a brighter emerald show,

The rose a richer crimson glow,

Than any gleamed in this year’s prime’—

All this was once upon a time

Long ago!

‘What though a while we part,’ you cried;

‘What though the wind is sighing;

The spring will autumn’s frost deride,

The summer laugh at winter-tide,

Long power to grief denying.

We part, but never say farewell;

Nor let the dead leaves to us tell

A tale of changeless sorrow;

Fair Spring comes sparkling down the dell,

And in that morrow,

If still upon this world below,

We’ll meet ’neath yonder spreading lime’—

You said so once upon a time

Long ago!

Perchance you have forgot all this;

’Twas long ago;

Perchance you sneer at words like bliss

And lovers’ woe.

Or else you are amused—as I—

To think we once swore we should die,

If fate us parted;

To think we vowed so soon to meet,

And said in spring-time we would greet,

Or else be broken-hearted.

Strange—is it not?—to have fancied so.

You smile, no doubt, such things to know;

Or do you count it as a crime

To think of once upon a time

Long ago?

Linda Gardiner.

Volume I. of the Fifth Series of Chambers’s Journal is now completed, price Nine Shillings.

A Title-page and Index, price One Penny, have been prepared, and may be ordered through any bookseller.

An elegant cloth case for binding the whole of the numbers for 1884 is also ready.

Back numbers to complete sets may at all times be had.

In our next Part will be given the opening chapters of an original Novel, entitled:
A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.
BY MRS OLIPHANT.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Printed and Published by W. and R. Chambers,
47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.