And my heart, where the memories of them were cast
And as buried and choked in the dust of the years,
Became peopled, it seemed, with the shapes of the Past;
And the voice of my brother grew fresh in my ears:
So my dried up eyes were softened at last
To weeping some few sweet tears;
But the Man who was sitting at my fireside—
He covered his face with his hands and cried
As I did in those earlier years.
Then I faltered,—“O Spectre of my lost Youth!
All too well at thy pleading the sad thoughts wake,
With the bitter regret of the Past, and in truth
The whole love of the fair things that all men forsake;
And for this thy reproach I am filléd with ruth—
My heart seemeth nigh to break:
Ah! right gladly would I now return with thee
To those loves and those lovers, if that might be,
And be happy for their sweet sake.
“And, O Spectre that wearest my look—my face,
And art ever with them as the thought they keep
To remind them of me in the changeless place
In the changeless Past where the memories sleep,—
Do thou tell them I am not all barren of grace,
Nor have buried their love so deep,
But that now after so long toward them I yearn,
And that often the thought of them all may return,
And that often it makes me weep.”
Then, alas! I was troubled and filled with shame,
As I looked on His face and beheld him fair;
For his locks were as gold, and his eyes as a flame;
And I knew that one winter had blanched my hair,
And that surely my looks were no longer the same
As in earlier days they were:
For I feared he should mock me and tell them of this,
And that even my tears were but scant beside his.
O, this thought was a hard one to bear!
But at length I fell dreaming beneath the might
Of each spell of the Past whence I cared not to start;
And I saw Him some time by the flickering light,
As the one in my dream who was playing my part;
Till his semblance grew dim and was gone from my sight
As a dream of the Past will depart.
Then the Spirit whose beauty has led me till now,
Came and breathed a sweet breath on my feverish brow,
And the strain of this verse in my heart.
A FADING FACE.
OUT of a dim and slowly fading place
In the deep dwelling mem’ries,—as it seems,
Mingled of purple mem’ries and of dreams—
The perfect marble features of Your face
Shine and are seen: each brow is like the space
Pearly in heaven after the sun-beams;
And all the curving of the mouth still gleams
Where many a gracious smile hath left a grace;
But the eyes are within, or all too far,
Or changed now to some element of heaven
Purer and subtler than the blue they were;
They meet me not. I know not where you are;
With God most—wholly in the grave,—or even
In the remembrance of you that is here.
THE HEART’S QUESTIONS.
Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 15, no. 3.
WHEN the heaven is blue,
Or the stars look down,
Or the golden crown
Glows upon the hills,—
When the sky of tears
Lets the sunlight through,
And the heart a moment thrills,
Yea, and utters too,—