Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 2/The Past

THE PAST.

How wild and dim this Life appears!
One long, deep, heavy sigh!
When o'er our eyes, half-clos'd in tears,
The images of former years
Are faintly glimmering by!
And still forgotten while they go,
As on the sea-beach wave on wave
Dissolves at once in snow.
Upon the blue and silent sky
The amber clouds one moment lie,
And like a dream are gone!
Though beautiful the moon-beams play
On the lake's bosom, bright as they,
And the soul intensely loves their stay,
Soon as the radiance melts away
We scarce believe it shone!
Heaven-airs amid the harp-strings dwell,
And we wish they ne'er may fade—
They cease! and the soul is a silent cell,
Where music never played.
Dream follows dream through the long night-hours,
Each lovelier than the last—
But ere the breath of morning-flowers,
That gorgeous world flies past.
And many a sweet angelic cheek,
Whose smiles of love and kindness speak,
Glides by us on this earth—
While in a day we cannot tell
Where shone the face we loved so well
In sadness or in mirth. N.