To Mrs. Love — on receiving her picture
ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE, DECEMBER 25, 1871 .
When I met thee, gentle lady, in the days of long ago,
This world of ours was fairer than it seemeth now, I trow.
The meadow grass was greener, the sky a deeper blue,
The stars in the heaven were brighter — brighter every drop of dew;
The shining rills and rivers sung a softer melodie,
As they went, arrayed in diamonds, to their bridal with the sea.
The birds made sweeter singing midst the summer-scented leaves,
Richer gold and crimson curtains hung around the dying eves,
The winds dropped fonder kisses on the lips of fairer flowers,
And love wove richer garlands down the pathway of the hours;
The frosts and snows of winter o'erflowed with joy and glee:
There was laughter in the raindrops, there was laughter in the sea.
O the charm, the joy of living in the glory and the glow
Of the days we left behind us, in the bloom of long ago!
The future may be pleasant, but it never can repay
The freshness and the beauty that the past has swept away.
We may understand in Heaven all life's sorrow, all its cost;
We may find amidst the angels, the angels we have lost;
But will they wear the semblance of the same dear forms they wore
When they faded from our vision to the bright Elysian shore?
Shall we know them by their voices, by their faces still so dear?
Will they clasp our hands and greet us, as they used to greet us here?
Faith answers to my yearning: " In some blessed world above,
Thy heart shall find its treasures, by the instincts of its love. "
So, in God's good grace believing, I trust and wander on,
Through the shadows of the twilight, to the glories of the dawn.
But, sometimes in my dreaming, comes a soft, uncertain strain,
Trembling from the walls of heaven. I know the sweet refrain,
And seem to hear the footsteps that may come no more below,
And listen to the voices of the happy long ago.
Thus my weary heart is cheated, in the vision land of sleep,
One bright, delicious moment — but, alas! it wakes to weep.
O, the sky has lost its sunshine, the stars are dim and cold,
And the world to me, in seeming, is growing gray and old.
The fancy that beguiled me wears a fetter on her wing,
And the harp I touched to music once has many a broken string.
But thine, O gentle lady, is a brighter, better way;
The hope that walked beside thee down the flowery paths of May,
Has never failed or fainted in the radiant hours of June,
And thy life has had few shadows from its dawning to its noon.
No storm has dimmed thy spirit, no mildew stained thy flowers,
And sweetest birds are singing still, among thy summer bowers.
Love dwells with pleasant duty, peace sits beside thy door;
The past is bright behind thee, the future bright before.
But the fairest rose that bloometh some touch of blight may bear;
The lightest heart may sometimes faint beneath unwonted care.
Life's sweetest cup is mingled with bitterest drops of gall,
And the shadow of a cloudlet on the brightest path may fall.
But if all that seemeth lovely, lofty, tender, pure and good,
Unselfish, true and worshipful in full-orbed womanhood,
Might win the fairest human lot our Father could assign,
The light, the joy, the paradise, dear lady, would be thine.
When I met thee, gentle lady, in the days of long ago,
This world of ours was fairer than it seemeth now, I trow.
The meadow grass was greener, the sky a deeper blue,
The stars in the heaven were brighter — brighter every drop of dew;
The shining rills and rivers sung a softer melodie,
As they went, arrayed in diamonds, to their bridal with the sea.
The birds made sweeter singing midst the summer-scented leaves,
Richer gold and crimson curtains hung around the dying eves,
The winds dropped fonder kisses on the lips of fairer flowers,
And love wove richer garlands down the pathway of the hours;
The frosts and snows of winter o'erflowed with joy and glee:
There was laughter in the raindrops, there was laughter in the sea.
O the charm, the joy of living in the glory and the glow
Of the days we left behind us, in the bloom of long ago!
The future may be pleasant, but it never can repay
The freshness and the beauty that the past has swept away.
We may understand in Heaven all life's sorrow, all its cost;
We may find amidst the angels, the angels we have lost;
But will they wear the semblance of the same dear forms they wore
When they faded from our vision to the bright Elysian shore?
Shall we know them by their voices, by their faces still so dear?
Will they clasp our hands and greet us, as they used to greet us here?
Faith answers to my yearning: " In some blessed world above,
Thy heart shall find its treasures, by the instincts of its love. "
So, in God's good grace believing, I trust and wander on,
Through the shadows of the twilight, to the glories of the dawn.
But, sometimes in my dreaming, comes a soft, uncertain strain,
Trembling from the walls of heaven. I know the sweet refrain,
And seem to hear the footsteps that may come no more below,
And listen to the voices of the happy long ago.
Thus my weary heart is cheated, in the vision land of sleep,
One bright, delicious moment — but, alas! it wakes to weep.
O, the sky has lost its sunshine, the stars are dim and cold,
And the world to me, in seeming, is growing gray and old.
The fancy that beguiled me wears a fetter on her wing,
And the harp I touched to music once has many a broken string.
But thine, O gentle lady, is a brighter, better way;
The hope that walked beside thee down the flowery paths of May,
Has never failed or fainted in the radiant hours of June,
And thy life has had few shadows from its dawning to its noon.
No storm has dimmed thy spirit, no mildew stained thy flowers,
And sweetest birds are singing still, among thy summer bowers.
Love dwells with pleasant duty, peace sits beside thy door;
The past is bright behind thee, the future bright before.
But the fairest rose that bloometh some touch of blight may bear;
The lightest heart may sometimes faint beneath unwonted care.
Life's sweetest cup is mingled with bitterest drops of gall,
And the shadow of a cloudlet on the brightest path may fall.
But if all that seemeth lovely, lofty, tender, pure and good,
Unselfish, true and worshipful in full-orbed womanhood,
Might win the fairest human lot our Father could assign,
The light, the joy, the paradise, dear lady, would be thine.
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