Our steps—ah! how fond was our intercourse then—
Like the leaves of the autumn have drifted apart,
And the voices that moan in that overgrown glen
Now melt into weeping the sorrowful heart.
ON PLUCKING A HEDGEROW ROSE.
I saw on a hedge that was flourishing by
A rose that was stirred by the breath of the morn,
So smiling and fragrant it looked there, that I
Was tempted to seize it, forgetting the thorn.
I eagerly plucked it but found to my pain
'Twas scentless and in it an insect was curled,
So I flung it away to the hedgerow again
And I thought of the joys of this troublesome world.
THE SHADOW OF A LIFE.
There's a face that beclouds like a shadow my pathway at morn and eve,
There's a form that glides before me which my eyes can never leave,
When I pore above the hearth and heavy thoughts my bosom fill,
I start like a sleeper from dreaming, for it's standing beside me still.
When I stroll in the gloom of the evening is that figure before me cast
With its strange and measured footfall, like the shadow of something past,
All through my summer wandering does it darken the light of the sun,
And it sits like a phantom to mock me when the work of the day is done.
It is ever present with me like an overhanging blight,
Thro' the heaviness of morning and the wakefulness of night,
When I bend within my chamber in the attitude of prayer—
With a look of wrapt devotion is it kneeling—kneeling there.