Classic Poem

Where'er I go, in flowers or snow,
In spring or winter tide,
Through cities builded long ago,
O'er prairies waste and wide,
A sweet, a wild, a phantom child
Goes ever at my side.
The sunlight in her hair that lies
Seems from our early sea,
There is a token in her eyes
Of skies that used to be
(The violet dyes of summer skies)
When she looks up at me.

She laughs as one untouched by fears,
She laughs and takes my hand,
She wanders with me through the years
And on from land to land,
But yet she cannot see my tears,
Nor would she understand.

She takes my hand; she sees me still
The laughing lad of old,
She thinks we wander on the hill
In plots of white and gold,
She stops to hear the whippoorwill
In woodlands dusk and cold.

And though I know our hills are far
And oceans ebb and flow,
I have no music, mirth, nor star
Whose grace I cherish so—
A memory that no sin can mar
Nor sorrow overthrow.