Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPECTRE OF THE PAST, by ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPECTRE OF THE PAST, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: On the great day of my life
Last Line: And I felt that the words were true.
Alternate Author Name(s): O'shaughnessy, Arthur W. E.
Subject(s): Life; Past


ON the great day of my life—
On the memorable day—
Just as the long inward strife
Of the echoes died away,
Just as on my couch I lay
Thinking thought away;
Came a Man into my room,
Bringing with him gloom.

Midnight stood upon the clock,
And the street sound ceased to rise;
Suddenly, and with no knock,
Came that Man before my eyes:
Yet he seemed not anywise
My heart to surprise,
And he sat down to abide
At my fireside.

But he stirred within my heart
Memories of the ancient days;
And strange visions seemed to start
Vividly before my gaze,
Yea, from the most distant haze
Of forgotten ways:
And he looked on me the while
With a most strange smile.

But my heart seemed well to know
That his face the semblance had
Of my own face long ago
Ere the years had made it sad,
When my youthful looks were clad
In a smile half glad;
To my heart he seemed in truth
All my vanished youth.

Then he named me by a name
Long since unfamiliar grown,
But remembered for the same
That my childhood's ears had known;
And his voice was like my own
In a sadder tone
Coming from the happy years
Choked, alas, with tears.

And, as though he nothing knew
Of that day's fair triumphing,
Or the Present were not true,
Or not worth remembering,
All the Past he seemed to bring
As a piteous thing
Back upon my heart again,
Yea, with a great pain:

"Do you still remember the winding street
In the grey old village?" he seemed to say;
"And the long school days that the sun made sweet
And the thought of the flowers from far away?
And the faces of friends whom you used to meet
In that village day by day,
—Ay, the face of this one or of that?" he said,
And the names he named were names of the dead
Who all in the churchyard lay.

"And do you remember the far green hills;
Or the long straight path by the side of the stream;
Or the road that led to the farm and the mills,
And the fields where you oft used to wander or dream
Or follow each change of your childish wills
Like the dance of some gay sunbeam?"—
Then, alas, from right weeping I could not refrain,
For indeed all those things I remembered again,—
As of yesterday they did seem.

And I thought of a day in a far lost Spring,
When the sun with a kiss set the wild flowers free;
When my heart felt the kiss and the shadowy wing
Of some beautiful spirit of things to be,
Who breathed in the song that the wild birds sing
Some deep tender meaning for me,—
Who undid a strange spell in the world as it were,
Who set wide sweet whispers abroad in the air,—
Made a presence I could not see.

"O for what have you wandered so far—so long?"
Said the voice that was e'en as my voice of old:
"O for what have you done to the Past such wrong?
Was there no fair dream on your own threshold?
In your childhood's home was there no fresh song?
—Was your heart then all so cold?
Why, at length, are you weary and lone and sad,
But for casting away all the good that you had
With the peace that was yours of old?

"Have you wholly forgotten the words you said,
When you stood by a certain mound of earth,
When you vowed with your heart that that place you made
The last burial-place for your love and your mirth,
For the pure past blisses you therein laid
Were surely your whole life's worth?—
O, the angels who deck the lone graves with their tears
Have cared for this, morning and evening, for years,
But of yours there has been long dearth:

"In the pure pale sheen of a hallowed night,
When the graves are looking their holiest,
You may see it more glistering and more bright
And holier-looking than all the rest;
You may see that the dews and the stars' strange light
Are loving that grave the best;
But, perhaps, if you went in the clear noon-day,
After so many years you might scarce find the way
Ere you tired indeed of the quest:

"For the path that leads to it is almost lost;
And quite tall grass-flowers of sickly blue
Have grown up there and gathered for years, and tost
Bitter germs all around them to grow up too;
For indeed all these years not a man has crost
That pathway—not even You!"—
But alas! for these words to my heart he sent,
For I knew it was Marguérite's grave that he meant,
And I felt that the words were true.





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