"Speak fire, and tell me
Thy flickering flame
Fell on me in years past
Say, am I the same?
Has my face the same brightness
In those days it wore ?
My foot the same lightness,
As it crosses the floor?
"Methinks there are changes
I am weary to-night
I once was as tireless
As the bird on her flight:
My bark, in full measure,
Threw foam from the prow
Not even for pleasure
Would I care to move now.
" 'Tis not the foot only
That lieth thus still
I am weary in spirit
I am listless in will.
My eye vainly peereth
Through the darkness, to find
Some object that cheereth
Some light for the mind.
"What shadows come o'er me
What things of the past
Bright things of my childhood
That fled all too fast;
The scenes where light roaming,
My foot wandered free,
Come back through the gloamin'
Come all back to me.
"The cool autumn evening,
The fair summer morn
The dress and the aspect
Some dear ones have worn
The sunshiny places
The shady hill side
The words and the faces
That might not abide.
"Die out, little fire
Ay, blacken and pine!
So have paled many lights
That were brighter than thine.
I can quicker thy embers
Again with a breath,
But the others lie cold
In the ashes of death."
Mr. Carleton had read near through the paper before Fleda came in.
"I have kept you a long time, Mr. Carleton," she said, coming up to the window; "I found aunt Lucy wanted me."
But she saw with a little surprise the deepening eye which met her, and which showed, she knew, the working of strong feeling. Her own eye went to the paper in search of explanation.
"What have you there? Oh, Mr. Carleton," she said, putting her hand over it "please to give it to me!"