It is full of the joy of to-day--and to-morrow,
Which smiles with a promise of fresh delight;
And yet my honey is galled with sorrow
As I think of the loved ones out of sight.
I wonder so soon if the dear old places
Are growing used to my absent feet,
I wonder if newer and fairer faces
To the hearts that housed me seem just as sweet.
I know on the world's great field of battle
When a comrade falls out how the ranks close in;
The strife goes on with its rush and rattle,
And who can tell where he late has been?
But through life a grafted vine I may wind me
About old Eastern homes at length,
The roots of love that I left behind me
In Western soil will keep their strength.
Though dear grows the "Mount of Lamentation."
And dear the ocean, and dear the shore,
I shall love the land of my Inspiration,
Its lakes, its valleys, its tried hearts, more.
[WORLDLY WISDOM.]
If it were in my dead Past's power
To let my Present bask
In some lost pleasure for an hour,
This is the boon I'd ask:
Re-pedestal from out the dust
Where long ago 'twas hurled,
My beautiful incautious trust
In this unworthy world.
The symbol of my own soul's truth--
I saw it go with tears--
The sweet unwisdom of my youth--
That vanished with the years.
Since knowledge brings us only grief,
I would return again
To happy ignorance and belief
In motives and in men.
For worldly wisdom learned in pain
Is in itself a cross,
Significant mayhap of gain,
Yet sign of saddest loss.