Long ago, in ages olden,
When our world was new;
When old Time was young and golden,
When men's hearts were true;
Fairer flowers than now are growing
Blossom'd everywhere--
Beauty to the earth bestowing,
Sweetness to the air!
Well men loved them, fondly dreaming
They were not of earth;
In their glorious beauty seeming
Of a higher birth.
And in those Elysian bowers,
In the days of old,
Speaking all their thoughts in flowers,
Thus their love they told:--
One alone, of purest whiteness,
Of them all was queen;
Sweeter than their hues of brightness
Was its snowy sheen.
If this flower as pledge were given
By true hearts in love,
Though on earth by sad doubts driven,
Yet their life above
Would be one in joy unending,
Undivided there,
Soul with soul in glory blending
In that kingdom fair.
This the legend I have told thee
Of the flower I send.
Oh, may its sweet leaves unfold thee
Hope, with such an end!
"THE EXILE'S REVERIE."
It is sweet to dream of the vanished times, in this changing
land of ours,
When we touch the hidden spring of thought, with the wand of
mystic powers,
That Remembrance yields to our yearning hearts, that are
lonely left, and pine
For the loves once ours, till shadowy forms come round us,
and flit and shine.
Through the gloom that wraps the earth-tired soul, that
drifts on life's sea apart,
Missing the clasp of a kindred hand, or thrill of heart to
heart.
Alone! alone! on the wide, wide world, where hope can console
no more;
Alone! alone! on the friendless waste, strange, on a stranger
shore.
Oft times when the gloaming gathers round, and the night wind
moans on the hill
Like a ghostly voice from the buried dead, when all around is
still,
In the midnight darkness and silence, I call through the mist
and maze,
To the sunny joys of the glad, bright dream, of the golden,
bygone days.
Then the poem of the wakened long-ago, to the music of memory
flows,
Now filled as with bridal gladness, now wailing out dirge-
like woes;
Through sunshine and summer glories, through brightness and
fragrant blooms,
Through howling storms, 'neath winter skies, through weeping
and murky glooms.
And then, when the weird strain ceases, and the fitful music
is done,
The pictures I love to gaze on, rise slowly, one by one
Through the mist of the past slow coming, they give to our
eyes once more,
What Death has stolen from me, and Death can alone restore.
Again, as in early childhood, I feel the fond caress
Of my mother's lips, or I hear the tones of my father's voice
that bless
His child in its gleeful gambols; Oh! happy and peaceful
hours!
Ye come in visions of golden noons, and sunshine, and shady
bowers!
And the low-breathed prayer when the sunset glow'd crimson in
the West,
And the sweet "Good-night," and the tender kiss, ere I sank
to tranquil rest;
Mother! that prayer still haunts me, adown the dreary years,
And the earnest tones of thy gentle voice, can steep my soul
in tears.
My brothers! faithful hearted! strong in your love, and true;
Oh! breaking heart, do you mock me? Can _they_ have
perished too?
In their morning time, when they shared my dreams of a Crown
and a Life-fight won,
Thank God, it was their's so early, when my fight had but
begun!
Oh, darling, best-beloved! keen now is the aching smart,
As when Death's chill touch on our clasped hands fell, when
he breathed the hard word "part,"
Only for earth's short span, my sweet, for love can never
die,
And the spirit bond but strengthens, as Time's wild waves
sweep bye.
Mine! by the vows soft-whispered, where hand in hand we
strayed
In twilight hours, through summer lanes, or roamed in the
lonely glade;
But the dream in its glory perished, and earth's brightest
hope was fled,
And light from my life was faded, when they laid thee with
the dead!
Elsie! my bright-haired sister! tender blossom and pure!
You drooped in that last storm's fury, too fragile its might
to endure;
And then I left the home-nest when my last sweet dove had
flown,
And sought to forget, amid stranger scenes, the sorrows my
soul had known.
It's thus the shadowy phantoms come back from the spirit-
shore,
When I cry in my lonely anguish for the joys now mine no
more.
I thrill with a passion'd yearning for the fuller life to be,
When my tired soul faints in wonder, lost in earth's
mystery!