I sat beside the fire, ten years ago,
And in the dusk wreathed fancies in its flare,
Meting the Future out, to each his share,
While danced the restless shadows to and fro.
And when at last the yellow flame grew low
And leapt and licked no more, I still sat there
Watching with eyes fast fixed, but mind elsewhere
The darkening crimson of the flameless glow.
And lo, at dusk, I watch once more to-day
The slowly-sinking flame, the faint dull crash
Of crumbling embers deadening into grey;
But see alone the Past, misspent and rash,
And wasted gifts, and chances thrown away.
The Present and the Future? All is ash.
NIGHT.
Thou heedest not, inexorable Night,
Whether besought from some lone prison cell
To stay thy hours, by one whose scaffold-knell
Will sound not later than return of light,
Or prayed to urge them by some suffering wight
Who notes their creep as wearily and well
As men not for eternity in Hell
May note the purging flames’ decreasing height.
Hark! in the street I hear a distant sound
Of music and of laughter and of song,
As go a band of revellers their round:
And under prison-walls it comes along,
And under dull sick-rooms, where moans abound;
For who shall grudge their strumming to the strong?
RIVER BABBLE.
The wreathing of my rhymes has helped to chase
Away despair from each untasted day,
And, on my soul, I pray of Time to stay
His hand, when I be dead, and not efface.
Yet would I tear them all, could that replace
The fly-rod in my hand, this day of May,
And watch unmoved their fragments float away
Into oblivion, on a trout-stream’s face.
Alas, thou fool! thou weary, crippled fool!
Thou never more wilt leap from stone to stone,
Where rise the trout in every rocky pool!
Thou never more wilt stand at dusk alone
Girt round by gurgling waters, in the cool,
While dance the flies, and make the trout thy own!
SUNKEN GOLD.
In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships,
While gold doubloons that from the drowned hand fell
Lie nestled in the ocean-flower’s bell
With Love’s gemmed rings once kissed by now dead lips.
And round some wrought-gold cup the sea-grass whips
And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell,
Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell,
And seek dim sunlight with their countless tips.