And ’twas thus in peace and plenty
The years went too swiftly by;
We had never known a sorrow,
Nor had scarcely felt a sigh.
Ah, thou generous, good old home,
Thy dear circle was complete;
We had no absent ones to roam,
“No weary wandering feet.”
CHAPTER II.
’Tis well that childhood and youth should be bright,
All sunny with bloom, and the golden light
Of innocent days of love and fair hope,
Gathering strength with life’s battles to cope.
Awake or asleep, a vision, a dream;
The real and unreal are floating between
Mysterious shores, as the stream glides away;
The mystery of life, and the grace of a day.
Ah, who can measure the fleetness of years?
The height of our joys, the depth of our tears?
The horizon bounds our dim vision here,
And our thoughts are vague as the boundless sphere
Bordering round us; vast ethereal sea
On the awful confines of eternity!
Anxiously we peer into the abysmal gloom,
Striving to read there futurity’s doom;
And we walk with hope in its radiant light,
Or grope lone and lost through the realms of night.
’Tis either a season of bliss or pain,
Of grievous loss, or of welcome gain;
The peace of love, soothing every care,
Or a barren waste and a grim despair.
A few there are that glide calmly between,
Leading sunny lives, knowing no extreme
Of love or of hate, of sorrow or pain.
Caring not for the world, its wealth nor its fame,
Serenely they glide like a summer day
Down the stream of time, flitting swift away.
What are thy works, thy wisdom, O man?
A little point in God’s marvellous plan
Of creation; a weak dependent, thou,
On help Divine; doubt written on thy brow.
E’en the orb we inhabit, we dimly trace
Its spectral course through the realms of space,
As careening we sweep through voids unknown,
Round an infinite centre, Alcyone!
Aye, life’s a mystery, a fleeting breath,
Pursued by phantoms, o’ertaken by death.
’Tis merely a step from day into night,
From darkness into the marvellous light
Of a day of golden, supernal bloom
Beyond the confines of death and the tomb.
Our childhood’s a joyous and peaceful dream,
With no set purpose to darken between;
To sing, and to shout, to frolic away
The bright, happy hours of the rosy day.
But youth will awaken, and hear afar
The muffled roar of the world’s stern war.
Ambition will rise in their hearts of fire,
To fame and honors they too will aspire.
And thus it hath been, and ever ’twill be,
Till time dies out in eternity.
CHAPTER III.
We boys had hopefully crossed the Rubicon,
And entered the arena, the battle of life;
An ensanguined field, where millions of men
Engage in the ruthless, pitiless strife.
Glowing pictures of the world beyond had reached us,
Alluring our tender, untried feet to roam;
And we grew ambitious and unsatisfied,
And wandered away from the dear old home.
Out on the highway, the strange highway of life,
We joined in the conflict, with hope beating high,
Heeding not the mutterings of the storm afar,
As it darkened along the edge of the sky.
We saw not the foes that lurked by the wayside,
We knew not the road was so dreary and long;
We only were eager to join in the conflict
For wealth and fair fame with the ravenous throng.
But our paths diverged, and my brother and I
Parted, to meet in this life nevermore;
And a lonesomeness and heartache came unto me,
A poor wanderer; and weird shadows stealing o’er
The way that I must go with pain and vague regret;
And haunting dreams of the loved ones and of home
Were ever with me in the conflict’s surging tide,
Where I strove for victory unsupported and alone.
And brother Jack went on the sea,
And sailed its blue depths far and wide,
In quest of wealth and tempting fame
To crown his patient waiting bride.
Many a day hath passed away
Since Molly Dean watched on the shore,
With fading face and weary eye,
For brother Jack will come no more.