The Old Tune - Thirty-Sixth Variation

This shred of song you bid me bring     Is snatched from fancy's embers;     Ah, when the lips forget to sing,     The faithful heart remembers!     Too swift the wings of envious Time     To wait for dallying phrases,     Or woven strands of labored rhyme     To thread their cunning mazes.     A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain     Its magic breath discloses     Our life's long vista through a lane     Of threescore summers' roses!     One language years alone can teach     Its roots are young affections     That feel their way to simplest speech     Through silent recollections.     That tongue is ours. How few the words     We need to know a brother!     As simple are the notes of birds,     Yet well they know each other.     This freezing month of ice and snow     That brings our lives together     Lends to our year a living glow     That warms its wintry weather.     So let us meet as eve draws nigh,     And life matures and mellows,     Till Nature whispers with a sigh,     "Good-night, my dear old fellows!"