Classic Poem

I

A tangled garden, bleak, and dry,
And silent, 'neath a dark'ning sky,
Is all that barren Age retains
Of costly Youth's superb domains.
Mute in its bosom, cold and lone,
A dial watches, on a stone;
The vines are sere, the haggard boughs
In dusky torpor dream and drowse;
The paths are deep with yellow leaves,
In which the wind of evening grieves;
And up and down, and to and fro,
One pale gray shadow wanders slow.

II

When now the fading sunset gleams
Across a glim'ring waste of dreams;
When now the shadows eastward fall,
And twilight hears the curlew's call;
When blighted now the lily shows,
And no more bloom is on the rose;
What phantom of the dying day
Shall gild the wanderer's sombre way, —
What new illusion of delight,
What magic, ushering in the night?
For, deep beneath the proudest will,
The heart must have its solace still.

III

Ah, many a hope too sweet to last
Is in that garden of the Past,
And many a flower that once was fair
Lies cold, and dead, and wither'd there;
Youth's promise, trusted Friendship's bliss,
Fame's laurel, Love's enraptur'd kiss,
Beauty and strength, — the spirit's wings, —
And the glad sense of natural things,
And times that smile, and times that weep, —
All shrouded in the cells of sleep;
While o'er them careless zephyrs pass,
And sunbeams, in the rustling grass.

IV

So ends it all: but never yet
Could the true heart of love forget;
And grander sway was never known
Than his, who reigns on Memory's throne!
Though grim the threat and dark the frown
With which the pall of night comes down,
Though all the scene be drear and wild,
Life once was precious, — once it smiled, —
And in his dream he lives again
With ev'ry joy that crowned it then,
And no remorse of time can dim
The splendor of the Past for him.

V

The sea that round his childhood play'd
Still makes the music once it made,
And still in Fancy's chambers sing
The breezes of eternal Spring;
While, thronging youth's resplendent track,
The princes and the queens come back,
And everywhere the dreary mould
Breaks into Nature's green and gold!
It is not night, — or, if it be,
So let the night descend for me,
When Mem'ry's radiant dream shall cease, —
Slow lapsing into perfect peace.