Poems (McDonald)/An Old Man's Reminiscence

by Mary Noel McDonald

AN OLD MAN'S REMINISCENCE.

The writer's grandfather, an old revolutionary officer, now on the verge of ninety-two, paid a visit several years since to a house in the city of Albany, in which, more than half a century before, he had been married. The touching narration of his feelings, as he stood in that time-worn apartment, suggested the following lines.

An old man stood in a serious mood, within an ancient room,
And o'er his features gathered fast, a shade of deepest gloom,
While to his eye, bedimmed with age, came up the gushing tears,
As memory from her hidden caves, recalled long buried years.

What were his thoughts that hour, which thus awakened many a sigh;
And brought the shadow o'er his brow, the moisture to his eye?
What, in that old familiar place, had power to touch his heart?
To call that cloud of sorrow up, and bid that tear-drop start?

The past!—the past!—how rolled the tide of Time's swift river back,
While the bright rays of Youth and Love shed lustre on its track:
Full fifty summer suns had shone, since on that silent spot,
Had passed a scene, while life was left, could never be forgot.

There had the holiest tie been formed, the marriage vow been given,
And she who spoke it then with him, was now a saint in heaven:
But long, long intervening years, seemed like an idle dream,
As o'er his soul with glowing light, came that bright vision-gleam.

He stood before the holy man, with her, his youthful bride,
And spoke again the plighting word, that bound him to her side;
Again he clasped the small fair hand that hour had made his own,—
The vision faded—and he stood all desolate—alone.

His youthful brow is silvered o'er with fourscore winter snows;
The faltering step, the furrowed cheek, tell of life's certain close:
The plighted bride, the faithful wife, beloved so long, so true,
Now sleeps beneath the burial sod, where spring the wild flowers blue.

There is no music in his home—no light around his hearth,
The childish forms that frolicked there, have passed with all their mirth;
Years have rolled by, the changing years, and now he stands alone,
Musing upon the past—the past—hopes faded, loved ones gone.

Yet, aged pilgrim, dry the tear, suppress the rising sigh,
Look upward, onward, to the scenes of immortality;
Fleet be the moments, if they bear in their resistless flight,
The spirit on to that pure world of blessedness and light.

There are thy loved ones gathered safe, in beauty side by side,
And there the partner of thy life, thy manhood's gentle bride;
Fair as she stood in that bright hour, this day recalled to mind,
A little season gone before, a better rest to find;
And thou, when death shall close thine eye, in heaven that rest will share,
And find the tie once broken here, indissoluble there.