Poems (Odom)/After Long Years
AFTER LONG YEARS.
I stand once again in the home of my youth, The sunny old house on the hill,The jessamine vine with its pure waxen stars Climbs lovingly over it still.The roses are flinging their fragrance abroad And freighting the air with perfume;The myrtles are dropping their gay-colored leaves, The pathway is pink with their bloom.
The spirit of silence reigns over the place, My lashes are heavy with tears.The faces I knew and the voices I loved Have drifted away with the years.The grass, long and tangled, is hiding the path That leads to the orchard to-day;The well has grown dry, and the moss-covered curb Is broken and crumbling away.
The birds sing and twitter about the old trees The swallows coo under the eaves, The wind sweeping on with a desolate sound Moans over the bright-colored leaves.The old happy time rushes over me now, In surges of passionate pain;The voice of the past, like a wail o'er the dead, Trembles up in a tender refrain.
Again I am standing—a bright, happy child— Just under the vines at the gate,Kissing father "good-bye,"—there, under that tree, Is where his white horse used to wait,—His spirited pony who answered our call, And shook his proud head in the air,Impatiently pawing the earth where he stood, Well knowing his master was there.
The old tree is standing, still strong in its pride, Its boughs spreading broadly and low;No longer in waiting, the snowy white steed Slipped the halter of life years ago,My tears glitter bright on the half-broken rail As over the low gate I lean;The days of my childhood seem gleaming afar, With death shadows falling between.
I have looked on the grave of my father to-day, My heart throbbing painfully slow;I have knelt at the feet of my mother, and hid My tears in her robings of woe.Sad silence is hanging about the old house That once rung with music and song,And only the desolate wail of the winds Is mournfully sweeping along.
My brother's light laughter, so boyish and free, That once floated out on the breeze,No longer is heard in the dim, solemn shade,— Deep quiet reigns under the trees.He has wandered away to the gold-tinted West, And made him a home by the sea;His letters, so full of his young wedded joy, Are lovely and precious to me.
One sister wears now on her beautiful face The mystical traces of tears;O'er the grave of the husband she loved, she has wept Three desolate, sorrowful years. The other, the youngest and last of us all, Still lingers, and loves the old place;No sorrow can live in her happy young heart, Nor sweep the bloom out of her face.
I had longed to come back, just to linger awhile In the home of my childhood again;But the joy that I sought wears the draping of woe, And has passed through the valley of pain.And I weep for the faces I never shall see, For the voices I cannot forget;While the mantle of sadness falls over my soul, And remembrance is crowned with regret.
Vicksburg, Miss., 1880.