I ’ll sit and dream of that glad morn
We met by banks with elder snowing;
That dusk we strolled through flower and thorn,
By tasseled meads of cane and corn,
To where the stream was flowing.
Again I ’ll oar our boat among
The dripping lilies of the river,
To reach her hat, the grape-vine long
Struck in the stream; we ’ll row to song;
And then ... I ’ll wake and shiver.
Why is it that my mind reverts
To that sweet past? while full of parting
The present is: so full of hurts
And heartache, that what it asserts
Adds only to the smarting.
How often shall I sit and think
Of that sweet past! through lowered lashes
What-might-have-been trace link by link;
Then watch it gradually sink
And crumble into ashes.
Outside I ’ll hear the sad wind weep
Like some lone spirit, grieved, forsaken;
Then, shuddering, to bed will creep,
To lie awake, or, haply, sleep
A sleep by visions shaken.
By visions of the past, that draw
The present in a hue that’s wanting;
A scarecrow thing of sticks and straw,—
Like that just now I, passing, saw,—
Its empty tatters flaunting.
IX
He compares the present day with a past one:
The sun a splintered splendor was
In trees, whose waving branches blurred
Its disc, that day we went together,
’Mid wild-bee hum and whirring buzz
Of locusts, through the fields that purred
With summer in the perfect weather.
So sweet it was to look, and lean
To her young face and feel the light
Of eyes that met my own unsaddened!
Her laugh that left lips more serene;
Her speech that blossomed like the white
Life-everlasting there and gladdened.