II.
Still the blue violets by the oak are shaded,
Time in that quiet grove has left no trace;
But as the colours of this picture are faded,
So are the colours the heart threw o'er the place.
Passion and picture were each a fair delusion,
Tears have washed the brightness of each away;
Why should we wake from such beautiful illusion,
To know that life's happiness was lavish'd on a day?
And yet we are not false mid absence and mid strangers;
Mid trial and mid time, how dearly we've loved on;
Faithful through all that the faith of love endangers,
Though we feel that the dream of our earlier love is gone.
We have heard the heart's religion, its holy truth derided,
And the sneer, if not admitted has yet profaned;
By the world's many busy cares our thoughts have been divided,
And selfishness has harden'd whatever ground it gain'd.
When I think how that affection is bless'd beyond all measure,
The last best trace of heaven our earth retains,
I marvel how ambition, or vanity, or pleasure,
E'er have power to relax, or to break its gentle chains.
My spirit ponders mournfully, my eyes are dim with weeping,
Aside for a moment all life's worldliness is cast;
The flowers and the green leaves their summer watch are keeping,
And I dream beneath their shadow of the shadow of the past.
Do you remember it?
