a day at west point.
119
And where, oh where are the light footsteps gone,
That from the mountain-side came dancing down?
The voices full of mirth, the loving eyes,
The happy hearts, the human paradise,
The youth, the love, the life that revelled here,—
Are they too gone?—Upon Time's shadowy bier,
The pale, cold hours of joys now past, are laid,
Perhaps, not soon from memory's gaze to fade,
But never to be reckoned o'er again,
In all life's future store of bliss and pain.
From the bright eyes the sunshine may depart,
Youth flies—love dies—and from the joyous heart
Hope's gushing fountain ebbs too soon away,
Nor spares one drop for that disastrous day,
When from the barren waste of after life,
The weariness, the worldliness, the strife,
The soul looks o'er the desert of its way
To the green gardens of its early day:
The paradise, for which we vainly mourn,
The heaven, to which our ling'ring eyes still turn,
To which our footsteps never shall return.
That from the mountain-side came dancing down?
The voices full of mirth, the loving eyes,
The happy hearts, the human paradise,
The youth, the love, the life that revelled here,—
Are they too gone?—Upon Time's shadowy bier,
The pale, cold hours of joys now past, are laid,
Perhaps, not soon from memory's gaze to fade,
But never to be reckoned o'er again,
In all life's future store of bliss and pain.
From the bright eyes the sunshine may depart,
Youth flies—love dies—and from the joyous heart
Hope's gushing fountain ebbs too soon away,
Nor spares one drop for that disastrous day,
When from the barren waste of after life,
The weariness, the worldliness, the strife,
The soul looks o'er the desert of its way
To the green gardens of its early day:
The paradise, for which we vainly mourn,
The heaven, to which our ling'ring eyes still turn,
To which our footsteps never shall return.
