Reminiscence

So you would leave me, little Rose? Dear child, with all your mother’s ways; That look she had in girlish days, The look that with your beauty grows.

Oft when you bring her to my mind, Before my heart has time for pain, In you she seems to live again, As though no sorrow were behind.

And when that happy, trustful gaze Meets him you love, yet more I see Your mother as she looked at me: It is her own dear, watchful face.

And when he takes your hand in his, There flits across your lips and eyes Her own pleased smile of half surprise: It seems not like departed bliss.

Ah! what a heart-locked memory stirs— I look, ’tis she, and you are gone! Yes, though so many springs have flown, Her peace remains, our love is hers.

She sees your arms my neck enclose; She sees your lips upon my brow. No truer hour of love than now Awaits your heart, my happy Rose!

How they come back those days of old! And now that ’tis your wedding-eve, Now that for other scenes you leave, One happy legend shall be told,—

Told in this home, this sunny vale That for long years has been our own, Sacred in days that long have gone To many another lover’s tale.

It was an hour like this, the sun Was sinking, yet had far to go: The richness of his overflow Down river, wood, and pasture shone.

Two lovers in this porch had met Where often they had met in play: ’Twas on this memorable day— As though that sun had never set.

These grey-mossed tiles still ’neath it scorch; The glare and shade still side by side Aslant the mullioned casements glide From yon old gable to the porch.

A youth has hurried from these walls— He stops, as in a day-dream stands: His shadow with fast-folded hands As from yon stone sun-dial falls.

His eyes are full of one loved face Sunk pallid in her fingers cleft; The long-loved one who just had left In timid haste his wild embrace.

The love that with her childhood grew Had still to her unruffled clung; Engaging, playful, ever young,— And without change was ever new.

Not its glad pastimes she disowns; He drew her to a higher love; But while the pale emotion strove She fled from his impassioned tones.

Transparent isles of rushes bind The rivers light with bars of green That catch the water’s blue between, To where it darkens in the wind.

There lies his boat, and now the sun, Still going westward with the stream, Appears to tow him on his dream As they advance in unison.

Along the white and yellow meads, Which buttercup and daisy share, The crowding cattle idly stare As he winds through the matted reeds.

But her loved image fills his mind, And, ever gazing at him, screens His eyes from those long-happy scenes, As he drifts by them, nature-blind.

The white-flowered weed whose tresses float, Combed by the stream and water-waved, Seems her bright hair in crystal laved, Struggling to overtake his boat.

His sculls drip o’er the glossy wash: The ripple of the mellow tide He scarce feels o’er their edges glide; He lists not for the thrilling plash,

But thinks, when last the tide he clove, How bank-side elms before him flew, And quiet lay the distant view Of woodland hill where dwelt his love.

His memory holds it as the stream Holds all the shining summer round: The sky, the woods, the very sound Of cuckoos chanting in a dream.

And how she loved the grey old bridge! Those arches mirrored deep below, That meet the pillars row to row, Quivering from their ruffled ridge—

Three tunnels open to the skies! The tasselled mosses as they float, Now still, now heaving with the boat That passes while the vision flies.

As melt, with all the watery heaven, Those arches hanging o’er a sky— So in the quiet of a sigh The yearnings of his soul seemed riven.

The far-off boom of yonder weir Now rushes down the narrowed day: Like sirens battling with the spray, Once came its music to her ear.

The sun now trembles like a ball Heaven-forged and glittering in its blast; A pale green halo round him cast— Half quenched behind the waterfall.

White streaks are creeping through the shade; The moon climbs up the poplar trees: But a loved form of light he sees, As if her spirit walked the glade.

Well might it be, as since hath seemed,— So holy are the vanished years. But then her cheeks were under tears: It was on them the moonlight gleamed.

Her sobbings at his bosom fall; Fonder than words can tell, they say Her heart was his, half love, half play, But now all love she gives it all.

’Twas she, your mother! While she hung Her head, and hid her tears, and crept To me, as one who, erring, wept; Wept more the closer that she clung;

She seemed an infant in my arms— Kissed me as would a child bereaved: And then, as ’twere for joy, she grieved— Her heart released from its alarms.

God bless you, Rose! That loving face— Could she but see it! Well I knew Her thoughts when last she looked at you, Who now have grown up in her place.

Ah, leave me, Rose! these memories stir Depths that you may not dream of, child! These tears till now your love has wiled; Leave me, that I may think of her.