Poems (Procter)/A Contrast

by Adelaide Anne Procter

A CONTRAST.

AN you open that ebony Casket? Look, this is the key: but stay,Those are only a few old letters That I keep,—to burn some day.

Yes, that Locket is quaint and ancient; But leave it, dear, with the ring,And give me the little Portrait Which hangs by a crimson string.

I have never opened that Casket Since, many long years ago,It was sent me back in anger By one whom I used to know.

But I want you to see the Portrait: I wonder if you can traceA look of that smiling creature Left now in my faded face.

It was like me once; but remember The weary, relentless years,And Life, with its fierce brief tempests, And its long, long rain of tears.

Is it strange to call it my Portrait? Nay, smile, dear, for well you may,To think of that radiant Vision And of what I am to-day.

With restless, yet confident longing, How those blue eyes seem to gazeInto deep and exhaustless treasures, All hid in the coming days.

With that trust which leans on the Future, And counts on her promised store,Until she has taught us to tremble And hope,—but to trust no more.

How that young, light heart would have pitied Me now—if her dreams had shownA quiet and weary woman With all her illusions flown.

Yet I—who shall soon be resting, And have passed the hardest part—Can look back with a deeper pity On that young, unconscious heart.

It is strange; but Life's currents drift us So surely and swiftly on,That we scarcely notice the changes, And how many things are gone:

And forget, while to-day absorbs us, How old mysteries are unsealed;How the old, old ties are loosened, And the old, old wounds are healed.

And we say that our Life is fleeting Like a story that Time has told;But we fancy that we—we only— Are just what we were of old.

So now and then it is wisdom To gaze, as I do to-day,At a half-forgotten relic Of a Time that is passed away.

The very look of that Portrait, The perfume that seems to clingTo those fragile and faded letters, And the Locket, and the Ring,

If they only stirred in my spirit Forgotten pleasure and pain,—Why, memory is often bitter, And almost always in vain;

But the contrast of bygone hours Comes to rend a veil away,—And I marvel to see the stranger Who is living in me to-day.