Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/162

158 Well, years had passed, and my mind was filled
 * With the world, its cares and ways,

When again I stood in that little school
 * Where I passed my boyhood's days.

My old friend was gone! and there hung a thing
 * That my sorrow seemed to mock.

As I gazed with a tear and a softened heart
 * At a new-fashioned Yankee clock.

'Twas a gaudy thing with bright painted sides,
 * And it looked with insolent stare

On the desks and the seats and on every thing old;
 * And I thought of the friendly air

Of the face that I missed, with its weights and chains,—
 * All gone to the auctioneer's block:

'Tis a thing of the past,—never more shall I see
 * But in memory that old school clock.

'Tis the way of the world: old friends pass away,
 * And fresh faces arise in their stead;

But still 'mid the din and the bustle of life
 * We cherish fond thoughts of the dead.