Poems (Griffith)/Recollections

by Mattie Griffith

For works with similar titles, see Recollections.

Recollections.

THE twilight now is blushing o'er the earth—
The west is glowing like a garden, rich
With Summer's many-tinted blooms; the flowers
Of earth hold up their fairy cups to catch
The softly falling dew-drops; the bright stars
Are set like glorious diamonds on the dark
Blue drapery of the halls of heaven; the pale
Sweet moon, like some young angel of the air,
Floats from the east upon her silver wing;
Eve's golden clouds hang low—and thin, white mists
Rise silently and beautifully up
Through the calm atmosphere. Serenity
And loveliness and beauty are abroad
O'er the whole world of nature.

                 At this hour.
When all the dark, wild passions of the breast
Are hushed and quelled by Nature's spell of power,
When every wayward feeling is rebuked
And chastened by the blended influence
Of earth and heaven, I've stolen forth alone
Beneath the blue and glorious sky, to hold
Communion with the golden hours now gone
Into the past eternity.

            My heart
Is very soft to-night, and joys long past
Shine through the silver mists of memory,
Like sweet stars of the soul. My brow is flushed,
My bosom throbs, and blesséd tears well up
From my heart's unsealed fountain, as I see
Through the pale shadows of the years, the home
Where first I felt the sweet, bewildering bliss
Of new existence. Softly, through the deep
Green foliage of the grove, the beautiful
White cottage peeps with its thick-blooming vines,
And in the distance the still church-yard, where
Repose the cold, unthrobbing hearts of those
I loved in childhood, lifts its marble shafts
Beneath the drooping willows. I behold
The shaded paths where my young footsteps strayed
To gather wild flowers at the morning tide,
And for a few brief moments once again
I seem to wander through the dear old wood.
The birds sing round me, the dark forest pines,
Stirred by the breeze, make music like the low
Faint murmurs of the sea, my playmates shout
Beside me, and my mother's music call
Of gentle love is in my ear.

               Oh, there,
In that sweet home, I cherished fairy dreams
Of happiness, and all my being wore
A glow of deep, ideal loveliness.
My vanished childhood rises to my view
In pale and melancholy beauty. Life
Since then hath been but desolate. Alas!
What heart-chords have been broken, what bright dreams
Been shadowed by the hue of grief. No more
The Egeria of my spirit-worship haunts
The grove and wood. No charm can woo her back,
She will not hear my call, she answers not
The witching spell of fancy. It is not
That nature has grown old. Her skies are still
As blue, her trees as green, her dews as soft,
Her flowers as sweet, her clouds as beautiful,
Her birds, her waves, her minds as musical
As when I was a child—Alas! the change
Is in my heart.

        Oh, blessed memories
Of home! ye are the worshipped household gods
Upon my spirit's altar. Vanished years!
Ye are the dew-drops that my spirit's flowers
Enfold within their petals. Years have passed
Since that all-mournful day, when, with a sad
And breaking heart, and streaming eyes, I left
The scenes of childhood, and went forth to find
A home amid the stranger crowds, where I
Have learned to wear the mask that others wear,
To smile while agony is in my soul.
Yet at an hour like this, when Nature glows
With deepest loveliness, when earth and heaven
Unite to woo my heart from its retreat
Of gloom and sorrow, I can wander back
To quench my faint and sinking spirit's thirst
At young life's gushing fountains, and forget
That I am not once more a happy child.