The present darkens and faints and fades,
And the old-loved smiles shine through;
The living wander, like ghostly shades,
And the lost are born anew.
And my soul with the joy of its calm is rife,
As I bask in my after-glow,
For I loved my love, and I lived my life
In the days of long ago.
Mary L. Hankin.
BALLADE OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS.
WITH a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmurous linger and gaze—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich ripe rose as with incense steams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights,
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
And it’s O! for my dear and the charm that stays—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
It’s O! for my Love and the dark that plights—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
W. E. Henley.
OH, GATHER ME THE ROSE.
OH, gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.
For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed forborne forever,
The worm regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.