AN OLD MAN’S DREAM
With idle hands and misty eyes,
I sit alone to-night and dream;
Upon the hearth, like elfin sprites,
The red flames dance, and twist, and gleam.
A dimness gathers in my room,
The pictured faces on the wall
Pale, and o’er each familiar thing
A strangeness slowly seems to fall.
With noiseless step there comes to me,
One whom I loved in days gone by.
The same is she, unchanged by time—
Unchanged—but oh, how changed am I!
Her hair, which long, long years ago
Was like spun threads of living gold,
Still clusters round a brow that wears
Immortal youth—and I am old.
No look of recognition lights
Her eyes, that meet mine o’er and o’er;
And yet she loved me once—and love,
I know, is love for evermore.
She looks around in anxious quest;
I think I know for whom she seeks.
She only sees a strange old man,
With snow-white hair and wrinkled cheeks.
And then like wings of birds that preen
For flight, a soft stir moves the air,
It is the whisper of her gown—
She goes to look for me elsewhere.
A sudden glory fills my eyes,
It is the firelight’s ruddy gleam;
Thank God she did not pass me by
I only saw her in a dream!