To a Friend
Fair friend, of the sweet hours that are no more,
Canst thou not charm from chambers of the Past
Those happy days of old, the summer wore
Like roses in her emerald zone set fast?
The dawn returns o’er ocean-meadows blue,
And still the moon in ancient splendour glows;
Alas, the mortal mind no magic knows
To render back the joys that once it knew.
Ah me! that day we sat, two souls in one,
Couched in a rocky vale, the summer hours,
And heard in trance the murmurous waters run,
And saw the sunbeam sleep amid the flowers.
A mighty boulder, cloven from the steep,
Cast on the meadow-green its silent shade,
Where we our pleasant rest together made
Till day dipped downwards on the fields of sleep.
From noon till eve the mountain shadows wheeled
And slid from slope to slope and cleft the air,
The hollow vale with laughing light was filled,
Like sunny wine that brims a flagon fair.
The barren crags gleamed moist with heavenly dew,
Forthstreaming from a thousand rills of snow
And dripping dark through mountain halls below
Or leaping with the cataract into view.
The clouds rode overhead, as in a dream,
Piled high in shifting splendour grandly calm,
Until, by magic moved, on us did seem
To fall delicious sleep, like some sweet balm
That steeps the soul in memories divine;
And Fancy, soaring high on wings of Love,
Held revel in the heaven of hope above,
Where dawned the daystar of my life and thine.
So were the happy hours that were; but now
Only sad echoes of sweet voices heard—
Visions that flit along the rugged brow
Of that broad-featured past: like some swift bird
That touching slowly stirs a sleeping flood,
And while its broad face brightens into smiles
Is past already westward many miles,
To where the red sun sinks in fire and blood.
So pass the years, and ever in the past
Old Nature smiles at us frail houseless things;
And if in love or in derision vast
Men scarcely know; alone thy memory brings
To me a hope that cannot fail: a calm
That spreads where else despair: for in thy soul
I see the mould of Nature’s mirrored whole—
One love, like thine, to shield mankind from harm.
1871.