A Folded Leaf

A folded page, old, stained, and blurred, I found within your book last night. I did not read the dim dark word I saw in the slow-waning light; So put it back, and left it there, As if in truth I did not care.

Ah! we have all a folded leaf That in Time's book of long ago We leave: a half-relief Falls on us when we hide it so. We fold it down, then turn away, And who may read that page to-day?

Not you, my child; nor you, my wife, Who sit beside my study chair; For all have something in their life That they, and they alone, may bear — A trifling lie, a deadly sin, A something bought they did not win.

My folded leaf! how blue eyes gleam And blot the dark-brown eyes I see; And golden curls at evening beam Above the black locks at my knee! Ah me! that leaf is folded down, And aye for me the locks are brown.

And yet I love them who sit by, My best and dearest — dearest now. They may not know for what I sigh, What brings the shadow on my brow. Ghosts at the best; so let them be, Nor come between my life and me.

They only rise at twilight hour; So light the lamp, and close the blind. Small perfume lingers in the flower That sleeps that folded page behind. So let it ever folded lie; 'Twill be unfolded when I die.