Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RETROSPECTION, by GARNET B. FREEMAN



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RETROSPECTION, by                    
First Line: I note this morning how the sunshine falleth
Last Line: In that blest land to which our feet are tending?
Subject(s): Fairies; Nature; Past; Elves


I NOTE this morning how the sunshine falleth,
Just as it fell one morning long ago;
A white dove walks the window-ledge, soft cooing;
The waters murmur in their ebb and flow.

The aspen whispers to the autumn breezes,
I see the golden-rod on sloping hills;
I catch the odors of the brown leaves dying,
And hear the babble of the shrunken rills.

I listen to some notes of children's laughter,
Smiling to think how late I was a child --
A happy elf with cheeks of sun-kissed crimson,
And curls of tawny gold, wind-tossed and wild.

The very winds stir memories with their wailing,
The very clouds that dot the azure sky,
The heliotrope within my window blooming,
Even the swallows swiftly skimming by.

On a dead oak that lifts its leafless branches
A raven sits, and croaks with fretful tone,
Like some old prophet who with mystic lore foresees
The evil that he sees with sob and moan.

A sense of pain, half hidden, half defined,
Stirs in my heart an unborn babe of sorrow
Whose birth, unwelcome and unasked, with wail
Shall usher in a darker, sadder morrow.

And I shall meet it as I met the day departed,
With pride unbending and an iron will,
That holds me steadfast in the path I chose, but hated,
Yet hating, love, and loving, loathe it still.

I see and hear; I know I am not dreaming;
And still somehow I cannot make it seem
But that I sleep, and hear and see things dimly,
As one does often in a troubled dream.

Ah, well! what matter, since so soon for all
Our struggles and our dreams will have an ending,
And our tired hearts and brains shall rest for aye
In that blest land to which our feet are tending?





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