Page:Poems Denver.djvu/72

With warrior-hearts that move in proud array
Beneath victorious banners, mark the play
Of nodding plumes, the rush of fiery steeds,
That wildly bound wherever courage leads,
Heedless of dead or dying. Such things fill
The bosom oft with an impassioned thrill,
That robs it of a life-time of sweet dreams,
To pour into their place the counter-streams
Of Pride and of Ambition—and the throngs
That follow after them.

           And there are songs
That haunt the heart of manhood like a gush
Of melting tenderness, heard in the hush
Of twilight, summoning departed things
Before the mind, upborne on spirit's wings
From the far spirit-land. The fond, the true,
The first affections our glad boyhood knew,
So wound up with our being, that a thread
Snapt rudely, well may lay us with the dead,
To bloom on earth no longer; and the bright
Young hopes that fled so quickly out of sight,
Soaring, e'en while we watched their rainbow dyes,
Like birds of paradise unto the skies;
These haunt the heart, where hope hath found a grave,
Like music floating o'er a midnight wave,
Mournful, yet beautiful, melting to tears
The sterner passions of succeeding years,
Roused but to be subdued.