I hear your voices as ye talked, what time
In childish pride I walked before, and thought
This world a paradise, and Earth full-fraught
With blessedness and love,—a summer clime
Of changeless beauty!—Ah! those streams flow on,
Blue are those skies, as green the woods, as still
The Sabbath hush that foldeth vale and hill
In sweet embrace, but ye, beloved, are gone!
She sleeps in stranger dust.—He, old and lone,
Long waited by the river, staff in hand,
Till a voice called him, and he sought that land
Where age takes on fresh youth to change unknown.
And we are parted, brothers, sisters dear—
Alas, the band is broken!—One by one
Ye left the hill-side green,—the Sabbath sun
Finds those old paths to-day, forsaken, drear.
And Mem'ry paints me yet another scene—
A home, love-lighted by an earnest eye—
A home, of fellowship so pure, so high.
I pause, and ask myself, have such things been?—
Or have I dreamed?—Was it a blessed dream?—
A dream of peace, and rest, and hallowed calm,—
The skies all sunshine, and the air all balm,—
The tranquil hours aglow with Heaven's own beam?—
A dream?—a dream?—the long, long, clouded day
That ended in a longer, sadder night,
When, in my home went out that blessed light,
And Love from its hushed chambers passed away?
O no!—oh no! 'Tis but the old, old tale
Of human bliss and human agony,—
Of morning's joy-bells ringing full and free,—
And evening's hollow winds and funeral wail!
Yet thou art left me, Sabbath! In thy light
I sit and muse, this sweet, June morning, till
The past, with all its varied scenes of good and ill,
Fades from my thought—fades, with the bliss and blight,
The short-lived transports of those buried years,—
The summer flowers I gathered with such pains,—
The gold I hoarded in slow-gathered grains,—
All lost,—the summer chilled by Autumn's tears,—