Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/198

 TO A SISTER.

, Fanny, dost remember
 * Days long gone, when we were young?

Dost remember how we sported,
 * How we laughed and how we sung?

Then we never dreamt of parting,
 * But each joyous, careless day

Fled; and no thought of to-morrow
 * Cross'd the sunshine of our way.

Dost remember that old garden,
 * 'Twas so beautiful and fair,

With its wealth of tropic splendour,
 * With its balmy, perfum'd air?

Dost remember the dark alleys,
 * Arch'd with many rarest vines,

With their clusters hanging thickly
 * In long, many-coloured lines?

Dost remember that green arbour,
 * With its cool, refreshing shade,

With the passion-flowers shining
 * In the shadows which they made?

Dost remember the great willows
 * Weeping o'er their weight of years,

Dipping in the pond beneath them,
 * And then drying up their tears

As they trailed their snake-like branches
 * O'er the dried and withered grass,

With their heavy, woeful weeping,
 * Bringing life where they did pass?