92
TO WALTER BOWNE, ESQ.
With the lost Pleiad; with the wars
Of Agamemnon’s ancestors;
With their own years of joy and grief,
Spring’s bud, and autumn’s faded leaf;
With birds that round their cradles flew;
With winds that in their boyhood blew;
With last night’s dream and last night’s dew.
Yes, they are gone; alas! each one of them;
Departed—every mother’s son of them.
Yet often, at the close of day,
When thoughts are winged and wandering, they
Come with the memory of the past,
Like sunset clouds along the mind,
Reflecting, as they’re flitting fast
In their wild hues of shade and light,
All that was beautiful and bright
In golden moments left behind.
