Poems (Odom)/Dead Faces
DEAD FACES.
I sit in my cottage home dreaming Alone in the light of the fire,Sweet memory music is thrilling The half-broken strings of my lyre.No effort I make to awaken The soft muffled notes that I hear,They steal through my heart like the cadence Of water when fountains are near.
The flickering fire-light falling, So weirdly bright on the floor,Calls up from the shadowy by-gone The years I have lost evermore.The faces of friends that are scattered, Like autumn leaves whirled on the blast,To-night are all smiling about me, Pale shades of a sepulchred past.
Fair forms still unfaded by sorrow, Untouched by the pencil of years; Eyes bright with the old happy lustre, Not knowing the dimness of tears.Lips trembling apart in the sweetness Of earliest blossoming youth,Before they had tarnished the brightness That lies on the jewel of truth.
They glide through the shimmering glories That fall from the heart of the fire,And touch with their shadowy fingers The strings of my quivering lyre.Old songs break into the silence From lips that have paled in death,And gushes of silvery laughter Float over the twilight's breath.
Sweet memories unforgotten On the foaming tide waves tossed,Fling up from the murmuring waters, The jewels my heart has lost.The faces of three little children, Shine out from the deepening gloom,And the ringing of childish voices I hear in the silent room.
There, farther back in the shadows, The little ones close to his knee,My dear old father is sitting, And smiling to-night on me.Thank God! I have never quite lost them; These precious, dead darlings of mine;They come to me often, and often— A presence unearthly divine.
They fill all my being with sweetness, With radiant, roseate bloom;They sweep from the grave all its darkness, And clothe with their beauty the tomb.In the hush of the unlighted hours That come when the sunshine has fled.I turn to these dear, loving faces, Half dreaming they can not be dead.