Poems (Edwards)/The Shadows of the Past
THE SHADOWS OF THE PAST.
There is a burden in my breast, A burden on my heart,A shadowing thought of loneliness, That will not thence depart.
A saddening memory of the past, A something undefined,Half dream and half reality, Comes crowding on my mind.
A misty vision dimly seen Through life's departed years,It is no thought of joy, and yet It is no thought of tears.
It is no thought of broken hopes, No dream of pleasures fled,No memory of departed joys, No memory of the dead.
It is the phantom of the past, The ghost of other hours,That mingles memory's jewels up Like dimly penciled flowers,Until the past is like a mist Of faint and fleecy showers.