STILL, still upon my cheek I feel their breath: How can it be that days which seem so near Are gone, forever gone, and lost in death? This is a thing that none may fully grasp, A thing too dreadful for the trivial tear: That all things glide away from out our clasp; And that this I, unchecked by years, has come Across into me from a little child Like some uncanny creature strangely dumb:— That I existed centuries past—somewhere, That ancestors on whom the earth is piled Are yet a part of me like my own hair. |