Page:Poems Denver.djvu/259

So shall we pass from the earth away,
Nor leave one vestige of our decay,
And the laugh and jest will still go round
On the places we deem most holy ground.

A draught from Memory! Once again
I would call from the past her buried train,
Her train of hopes, and joys, and fears,
Of little triumphs, and even tears.
I will gaze once more upon distant skies,
I will look once more into absent eyes,
I will hear the stream as it rushes on,
And speak with those who are dead and gone!

There, where the pine-trees reared on high
Their bristling heads toward the changing sky,
Where the glorious sunshine never crept,
A place where Timon might have wept,
I have passed, with swift and stealthy tread.
With indrawn breath and heart of dread;
For Fancy conjured images there,
Of ghost and goblin, or hideous bear.

O! when I think of the terrors wild
That shook my heart when a little child,
As I passed on that fearful road to school,
That I might not live to be a fool,
I feel like crying, with one of old,
Whose heart has long in death been cold,
But whose fame still makes the wide world ring,
"A little learning's a dangerous thing."