Once a Week (magazine)/Series 3/Volume 7/Ah, Me!

Note: original spelling has been maintained.

AH, ME!

I MEASURE life by gravestones, not by years; They are the milestones on my life’s highway; For rain of Heaven they have been wet with tears — Are wet to-day!

Tears of the heart, not of the clouded eye, Bedew these sepulchres of blighted blooms, Where, unresponsive, the beloved ones lie In far-off tombs.

Dear friends, who journeyed with me hand in hand, And dropped way-worn, leaving sad me behind, To seek alone that bright and better land Faith looks to find.

My baby-buds, sweet blossoms of my love, With sentient leaves expanding day by day; Whose essence envious Death exhaled above, And left me—clay.

Fair human forms surrendered to the dust, My human tears may dew your verdant graves; But there are buried hopes—uncofhned trusts — Where no grass waves.

There will be resurrection of the dead Parted humanity expects to meet All smiles and love — where never tears are shed— In bliss complete.

Some hopes died early, others in their prime, And the heart shrouds them in a viewless pall; But they will rise not in the after-time At any call.

I measure life by gravestones, not by years; And these, intangible, count with the seen; The dead hopes buried in a rain of tears— The “should have been.”

And not I, only — for, alas! all men Inurn dead hopes within their secret souls, But seldom mark their graves for mortal ken With open scrolls.