Carvings strange that some wanderer here enharbored,
Bringing the Orient's touch to the wondering child;
And Arctic gatherings; hints of the torrid zone;
And quaint embroideries worked by hands ancestral,
Deft for the spinning of flax on these silent wheels;
Books of a day when each was a treasure, a star—
And chief of them all, to the trembling heart of a boy,
The verse of him, the singer of song sonorous,
Whose voice was the voice of trumpets and many waters,
Whose soul went forth with angels and archangels,
Nor stood dismayed before the Eternal presence.
Pictures of faces whose features I see in my own—
That I see re-imaged by laws unfathomed, fateful,
In my own children's pleading, innocent faces;
Volumes of lores outgrown, or a living art;
Bibles and books of devotion, where names are enrolled
In letters that fade like the image of souls long dead.
Not without tears may I ponder the yellowing leaves
Where record was made of secretest dreams and prayers—
Records of love accomplished, or unfulfilled.
Were the agèd faces I knew, the timorous maidens
Who, wistful, their innocent passions here hinted, or hid?
This wife new-married, so young, so sweet, so appealing,
Was this the angelical mother, she of great sorrows,
Loving and dreaming in age, as in palpitant girlhood?
This lock, among many a tress so lovingly treasured—
Ah, this is my own, by hands that I knew so well,
Cut from a golden head that long has been silvered.
II
The old house speaks, and low, in the glimmering twilight,
It murmurs of days that are gone, and spirits lamented;
A girlish face with a smile all radiant, loving—
