A Procession Of Dead Days

I see the ghost of a perished day;     I know his face, and the feel of his dawn:     'Twas he who took me far away     To a spot strange and gray:     Look at me, Day, and then pass on,     But come again: yes, come anon!     Enters another into view;     His features are not cold or white,     But rosy as a vein seen through:     Too soon he smiles adieu.     Adieu, O ghost-day of delight;     But come and grace my dying sight.     Enters the day that brought the kiss:     He brought it in his foggy hand     To where the mumbling river is,     And the high clematis;     It lent new colour to the land,     And all the boy within me manned.     Ah, this one. Yes, I know his name,     He is the day that wrought a shine     Even on a precinct common and tame,     As 'twere of purposed aim.     He shows him as a rainbow sign     Of promise made to me and mine.     The next stands forth in his morning clothes,     And yet, despite their misty blue,     They mark no sombre custom-growths     That joyous living loathes,     But a meteor act, that left in its queue     A train of sparks my lifetime through.     I almost tremble at his nod -     This next in train who looks at me     As I were slave, and he were god     Wielding an iron rod.     I close my eyes; yet still is he     In front there, looking mastery.     In the similitude of a nurse     The phantom of the next one comes:     I did not know what better or worse     Chancings might bless or curse     When his original glossed the thrums     Of ivy, bringing that which numbs.     Yes; trees were turning in their sleep     Upon their windy pillows of gray     When he stole in. Silent his creep     On the grassed eastern steep . . .     I shall not soon forget that day,     And what his third hour took away!