BEYOND the purple, hazy trees Of summer's utmost boundaries; Beyond the sands -- beyond the seas -- Beyond the range of eyes like these, And only in the reach of the Enraptured gaze of Memory, There lies a land, long lost to me, -- The land of Used-to-be! A land enchanted -- such as swung In golden seas when sirens clung Along their dripping brinks, and sung To Jason in that mystic tongue That dazed men with its melody -- O such a land, with such a sea Kissing its shores eternally, Is the fair Used-to-be. A land where music ever girds The air with belts of singing-birds, And sows all sounds with such sweet words, That even in the low of herds A meaning lives so sweet to me, Lost laughter ripples limpidly From lips brimmed over with the glee Of rare old Used-to-be. Lost laughter, and the whistled tunes Of boyhood's mouth of crescent runes, That rounded, through long afternoons, To serenading plenilunes -- When starlight fell so mistily That, peering up from bended knee, I dreamed 'twas bridal drapery Snowed over Used-to-be. O land of love and dreamy thoughts, And shining fields, and shady spots Of coolest, greenest grassy plots, Embossed with wild forget-me-nots! -- And all ye blooms that longingly Lift your fair faces up to me Out of the past, I kiss in ye The lips of Used-to-be. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FABRIC OF LIFE by KAY RYAN MIDSUMMER NIGHT by SARA TEASDALE FRAGMENT 113 by HILDA DOOLITTLE PEACE by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS TO THE RIVER CHARLES by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 124 by ALFRED TENNYSON PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 33. AL-HALIM by EDWIN ARNOLD ON CYNTHIA, SINGING A RECITATIVE PIECE OF MUSIC by PHILIP AYRES |