Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/238



AD we the present—only that, no more!

Were the past, hidden by Oblivion's door,

Impenetrable to our backward gaze,

Its lessons lost, its joyful, tearful days!

Were there no vision of untrodden ways,

No distant fields of morn, no blooms unfound,

No skyey hopes to beckon from the ground,—

No loves whose waiting welcome ne'er betrays!

Were there no promise of returning Spring

When Autumn preens a migratory wing,

And on earth's hearth the fire is burning low!—

Were there no future with romance aglow,

When the chilled blood within the vein moves slow,

No dream of a fair dawning, in the night,—

No fond expectancy,—no pledge of light

Fairer than cloud-veiled days of winter know!

To-morrow!—mystic word of the Ideal!

What were all else, wert thou not there to heal