Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/The Flight of the Children

by Sarah Piatt

THE FLIGHT OF THE CHILDREN, ETC.

THE FLIGHT OF THE CHILDREN.

They fade to fairies, fade and pass
 Into the dimness of the dew,
Into the greenness of the grass,
 Among the blossoms glad and new;
They wander off into the wind,
And leave me, dreaming, far behind.

Then some great greyness round me steals;
 My hollow hands I faintly fold;
The awful touch of blindness seals
 My glimmering eyes, and I am old—
So old I care not for my years,
So old that I have done with tears.

. . . Soon little faces, flushed and fair,
 As other faces used to be,
Climb, full of wonder, up my chair,
 And whisper, while they look at me;—
Till, suddenly, some timid tongue
Asks me if I were ever young.

Then, wild and beautiful like a bird,
 Upon my shoulders youth alights;
Old music from its sleep is heard;
 I linger in diviner nights;
A lonesome crescent cuts the sky;
Weird, windy shadows waver by.

One lily, yellow-withered, dead,
 Reblooms and shakes old sweetness out;
One rose, from pages long unread,
 Breathes its lost breath of love about;
From half-a-century of dust
One slighted hand is wanly thrust.

. . . Then my fair, dreary dream will pass—
 No longer young nor old am I;
My fairies leave the dew and grass,
 Out of the wind my fairies fly;—
My own sweet children sweetly say:
"You cry sometimes—when we 're away!"