Poems (Denver)/The Songs that my Father used to sing

by Mary Caroline Denver

THE SONGS THAT MY FATHER USED TO SING.

The songs that my father used to sing,
 When I was a little child,—
They come to my heart, like birds in spring,
And make its innermost chambers ring
 With their music, quaint and wild.

They come, and my bosom is filled again,
 With the echoing sounds of yore;
The tread of armies across the plain,
The voice of weeping above the slain
 When the storm of battle is o'er.

I see the glorious ones of old,
 Start from their dreamless beds;
They have shook from off their breasts the mould,
And their coffined limbs are no longer cold,
 Nor helmetless their heads.

They come from the shores of the fading Past,
 With banner, and sword, and shiekd;
I hear the sound of the battle-blast,
I see the courser, rushing past
 Over the upturned field.

The songs that my father used to sing,
 When I was a heedless one,
They come like flowers of early spring,
And pleasant memories they bring,
 Of days that are past and gone.

Once more I sit by the starlit stream
 Where I sat in olden times,
And lend my ear to each darling theme,
And picture them forth as in a dream,
 In rude, unpolished rhymes.

I hear a sweet, sad voice of grief,
 From "Highland Mary's" grave,
In the rustling of the autumn-leaf,
In the binding of the golden sheaf,
 And the murmur of the wave.

Songs of the glorious days of yore;
 Songs of the brave and fair;
Upon my listening heart they pour
A mingled tide—the battle's roar,
 And the deep, still voice of prayer.

I hear them now! as they rise and swell,
 From childhood's fairy shore;
And they fall on my ear like a far-off bell,
Tolling at midnight a funeral knell—
 And my heart is sad once more!