Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/88

80 about his passing and kindly attentions to Adèle there was that air of gay mockery which overlaid his whole life, and which neither invited nor admitted of any profound acknowledgement. His kindest words—and some of them, so far as mere language went, were exuberantly tender—were met always by a half-saddened air of thankfulness and a little restrained pressure of the hand, as if Adèle had said,—"Not in earnest yet, Reuben! Earnest in nothing!"

ARDEN, wind the clock again;

Mighty years are going on,

Through the shadow and the dream,

And the happy-hearted dawn.

Wind again, wind again,—

Fifty hundred years are gone.

Through the harvest and the need,

Wealthy June and dewy May,

Grew the year from the old,

Grows to-morrow from to-day.

Wind again, wind again,—

Who can keep the years at bay?

Four-and-twenty conjurers

Lie in wait on land and sea,

Plucking down the startled ship,

Bud-embroidering the tree.

Wind again, wind again,—

We have neither ship nor tree.

Four-and-twenty kings to come

Up the never-vacant stair,—

Four-and-twenty dead go down;

Follow, sacred song and prayer.

Wind again, wind again,—

Warden, why delaying there?

To his interrupted dream

Comes the long-entreated day.

What are lesser words to him?

Sweet pursuing voices say,—

"Warden, wind, wind again,

Up the ever-golden way."

Other hands will wind the clock

While the frequent years go on,

Never noting need or name

Nor the rapture of the dawn.

Wind again, wind again,

Ere the given year be gone.