THE LAST DRIVE
’Twas long ago, aye, long and long ago,
I see the starlight and the paling clouds
Which linger yet in Mem’ry’s afterglow,
Pale cheeks that lie amid a sky of shrouds.
The swell of Evening’s breathing all around.
The flocks of Fullness by Contentment led,
Heart incense, murmur’d from the grateful ground
Up to the fold of Faith, bright panoplied.
The fields, the fresh’ning air—earth odors from below,
Your laugh, your perfumed hair—gone long, so long ago.
’Twas long ago, aye, long and long ago,
So says the world, Sweet, reckoning thereby
From season unto season. They do not know—
We reckon—we—from mem’ry unto mem’ry.
And when one mem’ry overshadoweth
All others, as morning over moon-skies,
The pink of slumber o’er the pale of death,
It stands alone before my aching eyes—
That evening drive—the hush—the twilight’s deepening blue,
The sunset’s crimson in your blush: “I love you, too.”
Sweets, sweets, sweets, from a heart of sweets!
And sweets to a soul of sad despair—
Oh, love, to-night the Past the Present meets
With love’s own linkéd laughter in the air.
But, oh, you went from out my heart as goes
The full rose, blushing, to the frosts of death—
As autumn flowers to the winter snows;
And now, dear heart, O now I love you so,
I love you yet, altho’ ’twas long, so long ago.
John Trotwood Moore.