DEAD FACES.
I sit in my cottage home dreaming Alone in the light of the fire,Sweet memory music is thrilling The half-broken strings of my lyre.No effort I make to awaken The soft muffled notes that I hear,They steal through my heart like the cadence Of water when fountains are near.
The flickering fire-light falling, So weirdly bright on the floor,Calls up from the shadowy by-gone The years I have lost evermore.The faces of friends that are scattered, Like autumn leaves whirled on the blast,To-night are all smiling about me, Pale shades of a sepulchred past.
Fair forms still unfaded by sorrow, Untouched by the pencil of years;
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