There is a patience, too, in things forgot;

They wait they find the portal long unused; And knocking there, it shall refuse them not,— Nor aught shall be refused!

Ah, yes! though we, unheeding years on years,
In alien pledges spend the heart's estate,
They bide some blessed moment of quick tears-
Some moment without date-

Some gleam on flower, or leaf, or beaded dew, Some tremble at the ear of memoried sound Of mother-song, they seize the slender clew,— The old loves gather round!

When that which lured us once now lureth not,
But the tired hands their garnered dross let fall,
This is the triumph of the things forgot-
To hear the tired heart call!

And they are with us at Life's farthest reach,
A light when into shadow all else dips,
As, in the stranger's land, the native speech
Returns to dying lips!

Edith M. Thomas [1854

IN THE TWILIGHT

MEN say the sullen instrument,

That, from the Master's bow,
With pangs of joy or woe,

Feels music's soul through every fibre sent,

Whispers the ravished strings

More than he knew or meant;

Old summers in its memory glow;
The secrets of the wind it sings;
It hears the April-loosened springs;
And mixes with its mood

All it dreamed when it stood

In the murmurous pine-wood
Long ago!

In the Twilight

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The magical moonlight then

Steeped every bough and cone; The roar of the brook in the glen

Came dim from the distance blown;
The wind through its glooms sang low,
And it swayed to and fro,

With delight as it stood,
In the wonderful wood,
Long ago!

O my life, have we not had seasons
That only said, Live and rejoice?
That asked not for causes and reasons,
But made us all feeling and voice?
When we went with the winds in their blowing,
When Nature and we were peers,

And we seemed to share in the flowing

Of the inexhaustible years?

Have we not from the earth drawn juices

Too fine for earth's sordid uses?

Have I heard, have I seen

All I feel, all I know?

Doth my heart overween?
Or could it have been

Long ago?

Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from Dreamland sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a splendor that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere,

Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music heard once by an ear

That cannot forget or reclaim it,
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show,

A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know,

As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
As if I had acted or schemed it,
Long ago!

And yet, could I live it over,

This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover,

As I seem to have been, once again,
Could I but speak it and show it,

This pleasure more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so,

The world should once more have a poet,

Such as it had

In the ages glad,

Long ago!

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]

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 tune
Of 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 birds

Are singing in the sunny rain,
I think I hear its words.

I think I hear the echo still

Of long forgotten tones,

When evening winds are on the hills,
And sunset fires the cones.

After Many Years

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 reveal
Her gracious green and gold;
I sit where youth was once, and feel
That I am growing old.

The lustre from the face of things

Is wearing all away;

Like one who halts with tired wings,
I rest and muse to-day.

There is a river in the range

I love to think about;

Perhaps the searching feet of change

Have never found it out.

Ah! oftentimes I used to look
Upon its banks, and long
To steal the beauty of that brook
And 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 place

The old familiar things

To which I turn a wistful face

Have never taken wings. Let me retain the fancy still,

That, past the lordly range, There always shines, in folds of hill, One spot secure from change!

435

I trust that yet the tender screen
That shades a certain nook
Remains, with all its gold and green,
The glory of the brook.

It hides a secret to the birds
And waters only known-
The letters of two lovely words—
A poem on a stone.

Perhaps the lady of the past,

Upon these lines may light, The purest verses and the last That I may ever write.

She need not fear a word of blame;

Her tale the flowers keep;—

The wind that heard me breathe her name
Has been for years asleep.

But in the night, and when the rain

The troubled torrents fills,

I often think I see again

The river in the hills:

And when the day is very near,

And birds are on the wing,

My spirit fancies it can hear

The song I cannot sing.

Henry Clarence Kendall [1841-1882]

THREE SEASONS

"A CUP for hope!" she said,

In springtime ere the bloom was old:
The crimson wine was poor and cold
By her mouth's richer red.

"A cup for love!" how low,
How soft the words; and all the while
Her blush was rippling with a smile
Like summer after snow.