I am musing to-night in the fire-light’s glow,
And watching the pictures that come and go;
Like dissolving views on a magic screen
Is the witchery of this changing scene;
Though half I’m dreaming, though half awake,
I fear to move lest the spell I break,
Lest my fairy castles will break and fall,
And down will tumble each beautiful wall.
Thus still in a stupor I sit and gaze
At the glowing embers and wanton blaze;
I am smiling at Fancy; she tries in vain
To lure me along with the mad’ning train
That follow her footsteps--that to her cling,
As flowers that garland the steps of spring;
In moody silence I sit apart,
Till memory conquers my sullen heart.
Sweet Memory! sprite of my golden past!
Your tinseled veil o’er me is cast;
Subdued I yield like one enchained,
And yet my freedom is only feigned;
Back through the aisles of years that are gone,
A willing captive you lead me on,
Where I gleaned unbidden the joys of youth
While the world was blossoming with love and truth.
Before my heart could interpret a sigh,
Or a tear-drop’s shadow creep into my eye,
Ere I’d missed from the circle of friendship’s chain
The link once lost that we ne’er regain,
The future to me was a vast expanse,
Its depth I could solve at a single glance,
Knew not of the troubles that torture the soul
Hidden away in its sober fold.
Yet, to-night, as I dream in the gathering gloom,
Only friends that are dear softly enter my room,
Those who gladdened my life in its season of pain,
Like a gleam of the sunshine along with the rain;
These, _these_ are the guests that encircle my hearth,
Who come gliding like spirits back to the earth.
What communion we hold only those ever know
Who sit musing alone in the fire-light’s glow.
A Curl.
To-night, as I turned back the pages
Of a book Time had fingered before,
And whose leaves held the odor of ages,
And the imprints of much usage wore,
A little brown curl I discovered,
That fell from the book to the floor.
Had I sinned? Heaven grant me its pardon.
Did a lover’s sad tear the page spot?
Who pressed there that gem of the garden--
The sweet flower, “forget-me-not?”
It lay as if carved on a grave-stone,
And all of its sweetness forgot.
I held the curl up to the lamplight,
And watching the gleam of its gold,
There I heard with the rush of the midnight,
A sad little story it told;
But I promised the sacred old volume
Its secret I would not unfold.
But I would that the world knew its sorrow,
The story I must not reveal;
But go to your book case to-morrow.
And each to your own heart appeal;
And you’ll know why the tattered old volume
The little curl tries to conceal.
Somebody’s Face.