For many a year we wandered
over hill and dale and mountain,
For ever pressing onward
till we’re nearly worn and old:
Searching for some spot Elysian
where the poets’ crystal fountain
Sings its songs of calm contentment
in a valley draped with gold:
Where the flowers bloom for ever
’neath the sun’s life-giving kisses,
But never droop ’neath thirsty skies
or feel the winter’s chill:
Where roses wreath an arbour
where no fatal adder hisses,
And the promise of our youthful dreams
our later days fulfil.
Then the purple flush of morning
thrilled our careless hearts with pleasure,
And the sunbeams shooting downward
with our spirit shared their glow:
Once every bell and buttercup
that blossomed was a treasure—
In those days that we have dreamed of,
in the misty long-ago.
But the joys of life would pall upon
the heart that they for ever,
Unbroken by a shadow,
lit with one eternal glare;
And the bonds of love are strengthened
by the thought that they may sever,
And are hallowed in the memory
of lives and loves that were.
The ropes of sand that bound us
then appeared so deftly woven
That we noticed not each single grain
the breezes swept away,
Nor underneath the robe of Beauty,
silken-cased, the cloven
Hoof of Time, that swept the garlands
into ruin and decay.
[Decoration: Horse-powered mining]