Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LIKE MIST ON A MOUNTAIN TOP BROKEN AND GRAY, by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LIKE MIST ON A MOUNTAIN TOP BROKEN AND GRAY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
Last Line: Whose feast of young smiles I may never share more!
Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, Isaac
Subject(s): Youth; Aging


Like mist on a mountain top broken and gray,
The dream of my early day fleeted away:
Now the evening of life, with its shadows, steals on,
And memoiy reposes on years that are gone!

Wild youth with strange fruitage of errors and tears ''"
A midday of bliss and a midnight of fears ''"
Though checmer'd, and sad, and mistaken you've been,
Still love I to muse on the hours we have seen!

With those long- vanished hours fair visions are flown,
And the soul of the minstrel sinks pensive and lone;
In vain would I ask of the future to bring
The verdure that gladden'd my life in its spring!

I think of the glen where the hazel-nut grew ''"
The pine-covered hill where the heather-bell blew ''"
The trout -burn which soothed with its murmuring sweet,
The wild flowers that gleamed on the red deer's retreat!

I look for the mates full of ardour and truth,
Whose joys, like my own, were the sunbeams of youth;
They passed e'er the morning of hope knew its close ''"
They left me to sleep where our fathers repose !

Where is now the wide hearth with the big faggot's blaze,
Where circled the legend and song of old days?
The legend's forgotten, the hearth is grown cold,
The home of my childhood to strangers is sold!

Like a pilgrim who speeds on a perilous way,
I pause, ere I part, oft again to survey
Those scenes ever dear to the friends I deplore,
Whose feast of young smiles I may never share more!





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