Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/242

214 II

All fades but those young, happy hours,

And in my soul once more the old joy flowers.

It flowers once more only to bring new pain;

For all in vain,

O song! thou singest in my grieving heart!

Thou hast no art

To bring again the smile I loved so well,

The voice that like a bell

Sounded all moods of sorrow and of laughter,

And the dear presence that in childhood's earliest thought,

And all the bright or darkened days thereafter,

Into my life a saddened sweetness brought—

Something of mother and of sister love,

A friendship far above

The ties that bind and loosen as we tread

The throngèd pleasures of life's later days.

Sweet maiden soul, I cannot praise

But mourn thee, mourn thee, to the shadows fled.

II

Shadows, O nevermore!

For when past forth thy spirit it did seem

As if against the black a golden door

Were opened and a gleam

From the eternal Light fell on thy face

And made a visible glory in the place.

Ah, well I know

Whatever be the source from whence we flow,

Whate'er the power begot these hearts of ours,—

As the great earth brings forth the summer flowers,—

That power is good, is God, and in her dying room

Humaned itself to sense and lightened all the gloom.