Classic Poem

1.

I N the darkening silence, —
When the hilltops dusk and fail,
And the purple damps of evening now
No longer edge the vale;
When the faint flesh-tinted clouds have parted
To the westward, one by one, —
In the glimmering silence,
I love to steal alone
By river and by runside,
Through knots of aspens gray,
And hearken for the voices
Of a music ceased away.

2.

About the winding water,
And among the bulrush-spears,
Like the wind of empty Autumn, comes
Their sorrow in my ears;
Like the wind of hollow Autumn blowing
From swamp and shallow dim,
Comes the sorrow of the voices;
Whilst along the weedy brim
I follow in the evenfall,
And darkly reason why
Those whispers breathe so mournfully
From depths of days gone by.

3.

Is it that, in the stealing
Of the tender, tearful tones,
The knowledge stirs, that bowers and homes
Are dust and fallen stones,
Where once they sang? — that on lips so loving
Settled a still gray sleep,
With tears, though mindful memory
Still brings them from the deep?
Is it that Conscience muses,
" 'Twas for thee their high hearts heaved? "
Or is it so, that I am not
What those best hearts believed?

4.

O falling stream! O voices!
O grief! O gaining night!
Ye bring no comfort to the heart:
Ye but again unite
In a brooding gloom, and a windy wail;
And a sorrow, cold like Death,
Steals from the river-border,
Falls in the dampening breath
Of the unavailing night-wind, —
Falls with the strength of tears,
And an unreal bitterness,
On the life of latter years.

5.

I see the flags of the River,
And the moss-green alder bark,
While faintly the far-set village lights
Flash through the rainy dark;
And the willow drops to the dipping water, —
But why, from shelf and shore,
Comes the trouble of the voices
Of the loved of heretofore?
They never knew these shadows,
And the river's sighing flow
Swept not their ears in those dim days,
Nor lulled them long ago.

6.

Sunk are the ships, or shattered, —
Yet, as'mid the burying foam,
On the wild sea-bar, beat here and there,
As the surges go and come,
Pieces and parts of a broken vessel;
So, to this stranger stream
And its still woods, come drifting in,
Thought, memory, doubt, and dream,
Of the noble hearts that sailed with me:
Here to this desert spot
Come their dim ghosts, where they, indeed,
Were known and nurtured not.

7.

'Tis the heart, the heart, remembers,
And with wild and passionate will
Peoples the woods and vales, and pours
Its cry round stream and hill.
I look o'er the hills to the mournful morning,
And it whispers still of home, —
And, in the darkening of the day,
Impels me forth to roam,
With a desolate and vague desire,
Like the evil spirit's quest;
Who walketh through dry places,
Seeking still, nor finding rest.

8.

Yet, in the gathering silence,
When the hilltops faint and fail,
And the tearful tints of twilight now
No longer edge the vale;
When the crimson-faded clouds have parted
To the westward, one by one, —
In the passionate silence,
I love to steal alone
By river and by runside,
Through knots of aspens gray,
And hearken for the voices
Of a music ceased away.