O days, when every flower was fair, When every birdling's song was sweet, Come from the portals of the past With dainty, silver-sandaled feet! Come back, and let your sunlight fall In rosy flocks and golden beams: O, give us back the happy hours That only visit us in dreams! Our flowers lie dead in winter's arms— Their silent bells no more will chime: Our hopes and trusts and vain regrets Lie dead within the arms of Time; The gloomy sky, in sad, grey drifts, The misery of earth reveals; The pallid countenance portrays The pain and grief the heart conceals. And as a pale shroud robes the earth In spotless folds of gleaming white, And as our shattered dreams of joy Are slowly buried out of sight, We ask our hearts: "And is this all For which the springtide laughed and sang? Must every bloom of earth and life Be buried thus, without a pang?" "Nay," says a struggling sunbeam's smile; "Nay," says the autumn's magic wand: "The blossoms of both earth and heart Are safely held within one Hand; And when 'tis best for you and me, A breath divine, breathed on our flowers, Will waken them to bloom once more Through happy, golden summer hours." |