Your past is past and never to return, The long bright yesterday of life's first years, Its days are dead -- cold ashes in an urn. Some held for you a chalice for your tears, And other days strewed flowers upon your way. They all are gone beyond your reach, And thus they are beyond my speech. I know them not, so that your first gone times To me unknown, lie far beyond my rhymes. But I can bless your soul and aims to-day, And I can ask your future to be sweet, And I can pray that you may never meet With any cross, you are too weak to bear. Virginia, Virgin name, and may you wear Its virtues and its beauties, fore'er and fore'er. I breathe this blessing, and I pray this prayer. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOMESDAY BOOK: GREGORY WENNER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK, AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD by ROBERT BURNS THE THREE HERMITS by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS VULTURES by GHALIB IBN RIBAH AL-HAJJAM SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH A NAMELESS EPITAPH (2) by MATTHEW ARNOLD SPRING SONG by JEAN ANTOINE DE BAIF |