An Old Man's Reverie

'Tis sixty years since first beneath this treeI stood a boy of ten,And here what time has left, or made of me,I stand again.

Let me retrace the path which I have made,A path too quickly found;For it is marked by many a cypress shade,And rising mound.

I was the youngest of a group whose mirthMade us a merry home;I sit alone beside my silent hearth–Where are they gone ?

Father and mother long have fallen asleep–The grass grows on each breast,Brothers and sister I have had to weep;They are at rest.

A gentle wife upon my happy heartRested her golden head–I watched her fade and silently depart,And kissed her dead.

Three little children clung around my knee,Bright-haired and earnest-eyed,But none of them doth now remain to me,They too have died.

The friends of youth no more with tales of oldThe pleasant past recall,In dreamless sleep they lie serenely cold–I've outlived all.

Yet, as I sit while shadows to and froAround me softly steal,I live again the happy long ago,And happy feel.

Again, with playmates, on the velvet lawnI triumph strive to gainAnd climb the mountain at the break of dawn,With throbbing vein.

I swim the lakes and roam the leafy wood;Soft was the setting sun,Ah! nowhere did I then find solitude;My heart was young.

And, golden time! again I woo my bride,My withered pulses stir,Among the fairest in a world so wideWho was like her?

How well I see her, that soft summer evenWhen in the bending skiesThe stars stole out, less bright to me in heavenThan her dear eyes.

I spoke my love, and her quick-waving blushHer own to me confessed;Well, well, perchance 'tis better I should hush,Such thoughts to rest.

After the dust and heat of life, long way,Now when the night is near,The stars shine out, that had been hid by day,Divinely clear.

By them I see life's silver cord held fast,Clasped by a wounded Hand:The deep significance of grief, at lastI understand.