Page:Poems Denver.djvu/246

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THE GRANDMOTHER.
A bent and a broken form hath she
Who hath breathed the breath of a century;
Whose eye is dim with wandering back,
Along life's weary and wasted track;
Whose heart is tired with turning o'er
Leaf after leaf in memory's store;
Whose mind is weary and almost fled,
With the visions on which it long has fed.

How long a history hath she,
Who hath lived the life of a century!
Of men who long have passed away,
Whose names now live in some martial lay,
Whose faces, in days and years long gone,
She many a time hath gazed upon;
Whose voices, now silent as long-past chimes,
Have thrilled in her ear a thousand times.

I have seen her sit in her old arm-chair,
With her wrinkled brow and her silver hair,
That looked as soft and white and clear,
As snow on the brow of the dying year!