Page:The college beautiful, and other poems.djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
CLARA.
13

For the voice grew clear in her ears,
While she gladdened our daily sight;
The shadow slipt from the years,
Till she vanished between our tears
And fled out into the light.

A soul of music and wind,
A spirit of radiant mirth,
A heart that thrilled to its kind,
A life with our lives entwined,
An ecstacy fled from earth.

We meet our loss as we may;
We turn to our toils again;
But a glory has passed from the day,
And all that we think or say
Bears a hidden sense of pain.

Yet we look on time's swift stream
No more with a faithless eye,
Nor of life and death can deem
That the sleep forgets the dream,
Who have seen our dear one die.

From the cloud-land whither she passed,
Where her passing left a rift,
A glimmer of light is cast
On our paths, and we hold it fast,
As we treasure her latest gift.