Poems (Griffith)/My Birth-Day
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My Birth-Day.
STRANGE feelings wildly throng around my heartOn this my natal day. They seem to come Like mournful spirits from the distant past, And from the dim, sad future. Down, far down Into my soul I gaze, and memory, The wizard, that bears sway in that lone realm, Calls perished joys and hopes from out their graves, And bids them glow, and live, and breathe, and I Seem once again a happy child amid The scenes of other days, with long-lost friends Clasping my hand, or sitting at my side, And murmuring in my ear their gentle tones Of melody and love.
My natal day! In other, happier years, I used to hail Its advent with a thrill of joy and prideFor then I deemed it but an added link To a young life that would for ever wear The lovely rose-tints of the morning heavens That hung serene and beautiful above,Unbroken by a storm-cloud; but to-day A sigh, a tear, is in my soul to think Wave after wave of my existence thus Breaks on the shore of old Eternity, And sinks to silence and to nothingness. Here in my spirit's awful solitude I muse upon the thousand hopes that rushed Impatient to life's banquet, and expired In tasting of the poison-cup they thought A boon the gods might crave.
My birth-day! Years Have flown and left me a lone mourner. One By one I've seen the deeply, dearly loved, The friends and guardians of my childhood, fade And wither like the leaves when Autumn sets His many tinted signet on the woods. Yet I, whose life in this drear month began,Still linger darkly, sadly here to weep For vanished stars and lovely blighted flowers That shed upon my life, in brighter years, Their lustre and their perfume. But with hopes All crushed, and eyes bathed in the heart's best dew, I lift my gaze above the earth, and read Upon the far sky's blue and starry scroll, A beautiful and holy promise. God Watches and shields the lonely orphan here; Ay, He who kindly tempers the cold wind To the shorn lamb, will temper life's fierce storms To her who calls upon His sacred name In deep and fervent prayer.
My natal day!'Tis slowly melting in the twilight now, And soon its tints along the western sky That seem a rose-wreath on the brow of death, Will pass away. My natal day, farewell!Oh may'st thou, if thy light shall ever come To me again on earth, behold the hopes,That droop and fold within my lonely soul Their broken pinions now, soar proudly And revel, amid the glories of the sky.
Louisville Ky.