Poems (Hoffman)/Twilight Thoughts
TWILIGHT THOUGHTS
I am sitting in the gloaming, In the gloaming all alone;Listening only to the moaning Of the organ's plaintive tone;Hearing but the distant footsteps Of the ages that have fled;Seeing but the shadowy faces Of the nations long since dead.
Long, long years ago they wandered In the paths we daily tread,For a little while they pondered On the living and the dead;Then they passed away in silence To the cities of the dumb;Making way for those who followed, Making room for us to come.
O remote and distant ages, Unknown tribes or empires grand;Whether savages or sages, Ye have written on the sand,And the sands of time dissolving Into life's great ocean tossed,Year by year grow faint and fainter, Few indeed are never lost.
These, like monuments are standing, O'er the tombs of millions more;Names that age to age are handing, Landmarks left along the shore Teaching us how brief our stations, How our glories must decay,Pointing to the generations Who have lived and passed away.
So I'm sitting in the gloaming, In the gloaming all alone;While my phantom thoughts are roaming Through the ages that have flown;Musing here in solemn silence By the landmarks on the shore,How each moment bears us farther From the great and good of yore.
Farther from their grief and glory, Nearer to the close of ours;Farther from their song and story, Nearer to our fading flowers;For our feet are daily slipping, Slipping from life's changing stage;Making room for nations coming, Nations of a later age.