"Yet wholly, nor for winter nor for storm
Doth Love depart!
We are not all forsaken till the worm
Creeps to the heart!
"Ah, nought without, within thee if decay,
Can heal or hurt thee.
Nor boots it, if thy heart itself betray,
Who may desert thee!"
ON THE REPERUSAL OF LETTERS WRITTEN IN YOUTH.
Strange, as when vaguely through the autumn haze
Loom the pale scenes last view'd in summer skies,
Out from the mist the thoughts of sunny days
And golden youth arise.
Were ye, in truth, my thoughts?—along the years
Flies back the wondering and incredulous Mind,
In the still archives of lost hopes and fears
Your date and tale to find.
Gradual and slow, reweaving link to link,
Epoch, and place, and image it recalls,
And owns the thoughts it never more can think,—
Dim pictures in dim halls!
Dim pictures now; and once ye breathed and moved,
And took your life as proudly from the sun
As if immortals!—schemed, aspired, and loved,
And sunk to rest;—sleep on!
On a past self the present self amazed
Looks, and beholds no likeness!—Canst thou see
In the pale features of the phantom raised
One trace still true to thee?
'Twas said "The child is father to the man,"
By one whose world was but the shepherd's range.
What seas beyond thy vale, Arcadian,
Ebb and reflow with change!