After Many Years
The song that once I dreamed about,The tender, touching thing,As radiant as the rose without—The love of wind and wing—The perfect verses, to the tuneOf woodland music set,As beautiful as afternoon,Remain unwritten yet.
It is too late to write them now—The ancient fire is cold;No ardent lights illume the brow,As in the days of old.I cannot dream the dream again;But when the happy birdsAre singing in the sunny rain,I think I hear its words.
I think I hear the echo stillOf long-forgotten tones,When evening winds are on the hillAnd sunset fires the cones;But only in the hours supreme,With songs of land and sea,The lyrics of the leaf and stream,This echo comes to me.
No longer doth the earth revealHer gracious green and gold;I sit where youth was once, and feelThat I am growing old.The lustre from the face of thingsIs wearing all away;Like one who halts with tired wings,I rest and muse to-day.
There is a river in the rangeI love to think about;Perhaps the searching feet of changeHave never found it out.Ah! oftentimes I used to lookUpon its banks, and longTo steal the beauty of that brookAnd put it in a song.
I wonder if the slopes of moss,In dreams so dear to me—The falls of flower, and flower-like floss—Are as they used to be!I wonder if the waterfalls,The singers far and fair,That gleamed between the wet, green walls,Are still the marvels there!
Ah! let me hope that in that placeThe old familiar thingsTo which I turn a wistful faceHave never taken wings.Let me retain the fancy stillThat, past the lordly range,There always shines, in folds of hill,One spot secure from change!
I trust that yet the tender screenThat shades a certain nook,Remains, with all its gold and green,The glory of the brook.It hides a secret to the birdsAnd waters only known:The letters of two lovely words—A poem on a stone.
Perhaps the lady of the pastUpon these lines may light,The purest verses, and the lastThat I may ever write.She need not fear a word of blame—Her tale the flowers keep—The wind that heard me breathe her nameHas been for years asleep.
But in the night, and when the rainThe troubled torrent fills,I often think I see againThe river in the hills;And when the day is very near,And birds are on the wing,My spirit fancies it can hearThe song I cannot sing.
[End of Songs from the Mountains.]