And then, by strange transition, he saw her pulseless lie—
And ’twas then I viewed the moisture in the corner of his eye.
Old friends were gathered round him, though they’d crossed death’s mystic stream,
In that hour of smiles and sighing when my grandsire used to dream.
Oh, glad, sad gift of memory to call our dear ones back
And win them from their narrow homes to Time’s still beaten track!
Yours was the power my grandsire held while twilight turned to night;
Through you his loved returned again and blessed his longing sight;
And I no longer wonder, when his dreaming I recall,
At smiles and sighs succeeding while the shadows hid us all,