Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/"A retrospect"

by Horace Moule

“A RETROSPECT.”

 

I.

I saw her gathering roses on a lawn,
And wondered what a gift the gods had given:
Her cheek, the hue of a fair summer dawn,
Her eyes, the calm of even.

 

II.

I saw her next upon a holiday,
And won her dear love on yon sunny crest:
While golden clouds grew crimson, crimson grey,
And the winds sank to rest.

 

III.

Later I saw, with these tear-drownèd eyes,
Or in celestial vision seemed to see,
How some bright angel from the blessed skies
Had come to wed with me.

 

IV.

One year—and then I saw a baby dead,
On the white pillow where she, dying, lay,
And seemed a-listening, till her little maid
Might call her soul away.

 

V.

I’m now alone; but sometimes in the night
Around my head familiar voices roam,
And win me, with a mystical delight,
To dream I am at home.

M.