Classic Poem

Back over twenty years we look. What blasts have sounded
From War's red trumpet! — what fierce deadly strifes abounded:
Strange is it, as back one looks!
Since the old boyish time when you and I together
Walked over purple miles of wind-tossed Cornish heather
And watched the arrowy trout in Cornish brooks.

Since the old Harrow days what bitter devastation
Has smitten low the hopes of nation after nation: —
Wide Europe's fields have bled
Since you and I as boys laughed round the merry wicket;
When all our worldly hopes were centred in our cricket,
Nor mattered it if kings or popes fell dead!

What was an Emperor's fate compared to winning merely
A hard-fought racquet-match! The latter struggle clearly
Meant most to gods and men!
Ah! happy days, — ere love steps in with all its passion
And moulds all things in new half-sweet half-mournful fashion:
The days that pass, and glance not back again.

In the long twenty years how many well-loved faces
Have vanished from our gaze! How many vacant places,
Looking around, we see.
Yet still the glad old earth hath flowers to wreathe and cherish
For us, old friend. Past hopes like dead leaves fall and perish,
And young-leaved new hopes spring round you and me.

The seasons come and go. The swift-winged swallow seaward
Turns. The bright eyes of Spring turn hopeward, heavenward, gleeward.
The autumn meadows gleam.
Sweet Summer binds her hair in dark-green leafy places.
Men die, — and love is born, and passion's white embraces
Change all things into one wild golden dream.

Some nations fall, — and new great nations rise above them.
Sad human hearts are wrung when the true hearts who love them
Pass, at the death-god's wing.
Some friendships are quite dead, and others fast are going.
Some passion-cups are dry that once were overflowing.
But still our friendship is a living thing.

How little once we thought that I, the Muses wooing,
Should spend my days their shy sweet sidelong gaze pursuing
And, after twenty years,
Bring you these flowers of song, — some where the dew yet lingers,
Some gathered later on with dust-stained weary fingers;
Some bright; some blood-stained; and some wet with tears.

Ah! when from Harrow hill we saw the far fields spreading
Gilded with evening light, if life's path we are treading
Had then as clearly showed,
Should we have shrunk in dread, as we drew back the curtain?
God only knows. But this, old friend, we know for certain:
Our friendship has shed light on all the road.