After Many Years

The song that once I dreamed about,     The tender, touching thing,     As radiant as the rose without     The love of wind and wing     The perfect verses, to the tune     Of woodland music set,     As beautiful as afternoon,     Remain unwritten yet.     It is too late to write them now     The ancient fire is cold;     No ardent lights illume the brow,     As in the days of old.     I cannot dream the dream again;     But when the happy birds     Are singing in the sunny rain,     I think I hear its words.     I think I hear the echo still     Of long-forgotten tones,     When evening winds are on the hill     And sunset fires the cones;     But only in the hours supreme,     With songs of land and sea,     The lyrics of the leaf and stream,     This echo comes to me.     No longer doth the earth reveal     Her gracious green and gold;     I sit where youth was once, and feel     That I am growing old.     The lustre from the face of things     Is wearing all away;     Like one who halts with tired wings,     I rest and muse to-day.     There is a river in the range     I love to think about;     Perhaps the searching feet of change     Have never found it out.     Ah! oftentimes I used to look     Upon its banks, and long     To steal the beauty of that brook     And put it in a song.     I wonder if the slopes of moss,     In dreams so dear to me     The falls of flower, and flower-like floss     Are as they used to be!     I wonder if the waterfalls,     The singers far and fair,     That gleamed between the wet, green walls,     Are still the marvels there!     Ah! let me hope that in that place     The old familiar things     To which I turn a wistful face     Have never taken wings.     Let me retain the fancy still     That, past the lordly range,     There always shines, in folds of hill,     One spot secure from change!     I trust that yet the tender screen     That shades a certain nook,     Remains, with all its gold and green,     The glory of the brook.     It hides a secret to the birds     And waters only known:     The letters of two lovely words     A poem on a stone.     Perhaps the lady of the past     Upon these lines may light,     The purest verses, and the last     That I may ever write.     She need not fear a word of blame     Her tale the flowers keep     The wind that heard me breathe her name     Has been for years asleep.     But in the night, and when the rain     The troubled torrent fills,     I often think I see again     The river in the hills;     And when the day is very near,     And birds are on the wing,     My spirit fancies it can hear     The song I cannot sing.