Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/89

Rh "MY SOUL IS DARK."

down Time's rapid river,

Toward the distant, dim Forever,

Ceasing not, and ceasing never—

From this mortal shore,

Is our life forever sliding,

Gliding still, and ever gliding,

With no pause, and no abiding,

Till Time's tide is o'er.

I am sitting in the glimmer

Of the twilight growing dimmer,

As the stars begin to shimmer

Through the darkening blue;

And my soul is sad to weeping,

With the memories 'tis keeping,

Memories that know no sleeping,

No nepenthean dew.

Life's frail bark is onward drifting,

Where care's stormy winds are shifting,

And no cloud of darkness lifting

Lets the light shine through;

Backward do I look with yearning,

My sad soul intensely burning,

But for me there is no turning—

Onward I must go.

Onward borne, but backward looking,

While my anguished soul is brooking

All the gentle, sad rebuking

Of the Past's dim face;

Forms from memory’s shore entreating,

Beckon me unto their meeting,

But I can not—farther ﬂeeting

From each dear embrace.