Think what beautiful worlds uncreated
The clouds then bore back to the sun;
What blisses were all frustrated;
What loves, that were almost begun!
Think, O Life,—had your stream but drifted
To this or that holier Past,
Or Future that must come at last—
Think, O sorrowful Life, and repent—
How the sorrowful days had been gifted
With solace and ravishment,
And year after year slowly lifted
To heavens of golden content!
THE SPECTRE OF THE PAST.
ON the great day of my life—
On the memorable day—
Just as the long inward strife
Of the echoes died away,
Just as on my couch I lay
Thinking thought away;
Came a Man into my room,
Bringing with him gloom.
Midnight stood upon the clock,
And the street sound ceased to rise;
Suddenly, and with no knock,
Came that Man before my eyes:
Yet he seemed not anywise
My heart to surprise,
And he sat down to abide
At my fireside.
But he stirred within my heart
Memories of the ancient days;
And strange visions seemed to start
Vividly before my gaze,
Yea, from the most distant haze
Of forgotten ways:
And he looked on me the while
With a most strange smile.
But my heart seemed well to know
That his face the semblance had
Of my own face long ago
Ere the years had made it sad,
When my youthful looks were clad
In a smile half glad;
To my heart he seemed in truth
All my vanished youth.
Then he named me by a name
Long since unfamiliar grown,
But remembered for the same
That my childhood’s ears had known;
And his voice was like my own
In a sadder tone
Coming from the happy years
Choked, alas, with tears.
And, as though he nothing knew
Of that day’s fair triumphing,
Or the Present were not true,
Or not worth remembering,
All the Past he seemed to bring
As a piteous thing
Back upon my heart again,
Yea, with a great pain: