| |
| BEYOND a hundred years and more, | |
| A garden lattice like a door | |
| Stands open in the sun, | |
| Admitting fitful winds that set | |
| Astir the fragrant mignonette | 5 |
| In waves of speckled dun: | |
| |
| Sweet waves, above whose odorous flow | |
| Red roses bud, red roses blow, | |
| In beds that gem the lawn— | |
| Enamell’d rings and stars of flowers, | 10 |
| By summer beams and vernal showers | |
| From earth nutritious drawn. | |
| |
| Within the broad bay-window, there, | |
| Lo! huddled in his easy-chair, | |
| One hand upon his knee, | 15 |
| A hand so thin, so wan, so frail, | |
| It tells of pains and griefs a tale, | |
| A small bent form I see. | |
| |
| The day is fair, the hour is noon, | |
| From neighboring thicket thrills the boon | 20 |
| The nuthatch yields in song: | |
| All drench’d with recent rains, the leaves | |
| Are dripping—drip the sheltering eaves, | |
| The dropping notes among. | |
| |
| And twinkling diamonds in the grass | 25 |
| Show where the flitting zephyrs pass, | |
| That shake the green blades dry; | |
| And golden radiance fills the air | |
| And gilds the floating gossamer | |
| That glints and trembles by. | 30 |
| |
| Yet, blind to each familiar grace, | |
| Strange anguish on his pallid face, | |
| And eyes of dreamful hue, | |
| That lonely man sits brooding there, | |
| Still huddled in his easy-chair, | 35 |
| With memories life will rue. | |
| |
| Where bay might crown that honor’d head, | |
| A homely crumpled nightcap spread | |
| Half veils the careworn brows; | |
| In morning-gown of rare brocade | 40 |
| His puny shrunken shape array’d | |
| His sorrowing soul avows: | |
| |
| Avows in every dropping line | |
| Dejection words not thus define | |
| So eloquent of woe; | 45 |
| Yet never to those mournful eyes, | |
| The heart’s full-brimming fountains, rise | |
| Sweet tears to overflow. | |
| |
| No token here of studied grief, | |
| But plainest signs that win belief, | 50 |
| A simple scene and true. | |
| Beside the mourner’s chair display’d, | |
| The matin meal’s slight comforts laid | |
| Trimly the board bestrew. | |
| |
| ’Mid silvery sheen of burnish’d plate, | 55 |
| The chill’d and tarnish’d chocolate | |
| On snow-white damask stands; | |
| Untouch’d the trivial lures remain | |
| In dainty pink-tinged porcelain, | |
| Still ranged by usual hands. | 60 |
| |
| A drowsy bee above the cream | |
| Hums loitering in the sunny gleam | |
| That tips each rim with gold; | |
| A checker’d maze of light and gloom | |
| Floats in the quaintly-litter’d room | 65 |
| With varying charms untold. | |
| |
| Why sits that silent watcher there, | |
| Still brooding with that face of care, | |
| That gaze of tearless pain? | |
| What bonds of woe his spirit bind, | 70 |
| What treasure lost can leave behind | |
| Such stings within his brain? | |
| |
| He dreams of one who lies above, | |
| He never more in life can love— | |
| That mother newly dead; | 75 |
| He waits the artist-friend whose skill | |
| Shall catch angel-beauty still | |
| Upon her features spread. | |
| |
| A reverent sorrow fills the air, | |
| And makes a throne of grief the chair | 80 |
| Where filial genius mourns: | |
| Death proving still, at direst need, | |
| Life’s sceptre-wand—a broken reed, | |
| Love’s wreath—a crown of thorns. | |
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