THE sounding forest towers Through the tinted blossom showers -- Green heavens raining flowers, Like my heart in the days that are gone. O, thousand-pillared shrine Of an Architect divine! What chancel meet as thine For praise to the days that are gone? But oh! what forest hath Such unforgotten path, As the haunted fairy rath Where we met in the days that are gone? For an Irish Venus there, Twining shamrocks in her hair, Smiled a glory through the air Pure as dawn in the days that are gone. Oh! the soul within her eyes, And our mingled tears and sighs -- Hush! in Irish clay she lies; Hang a pall o'er the days that are gone. Now a wailing phantom there Wrings the death-dew from her hair, Gazing westwards in despair Through the mist, where the black ships have gone. Thou shalt not long alone O'er our joy's abandoned throne To the midnight breezes moan O'er the hopes of the days that are gone. My life is ebbing fast, On the fiery southern blast I spring to thee at last, First love of the days that are gone. Prophetic shadows loom O'er my spirit from the tomb -- In glory, or in gloom, Thou art mine, by the days that are gone. There too the white-thorn blows O'er the mother's dust, whose woes One heart -- one only -- knows; Child of tears, it is well thou art gone. As I bore thee home to die, The lark filled all the sky; 'T was thine angel's call on high -- Let us pray for the souls that are gone. I miss the cloister bells Through the ruin-hallowed dells, The round towers and holy wells, That were part of the days that are gone. And the friends -- alas! how few -- In the hours of anguish true, Whose inmost hearts I knew, In the fire of the days that are gone. And the dreams that once I dreamed Of a nation's soul redeemed From the hell in which she seemed A saint in the days that are gone. Still the tomb, the rath, the shrine, And love's memories divine, O rich in tears! are thine, Widowed queen of the days that are gone. Sad isle of chains and graves, Though thy sons are slaves of slaves, I bless thee o'er the waves, For the sake of the days that are gone. Thus memory like a breeze Through the strong and silent trees, Bows my manhood, strewing these Withered leaves of the days that are gone. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOD'S WORLD by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE TENDER HUSBAND: PROLOGUE by JOSEPH ADDISON SONG: THE DEATH OF THE ROSE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE RING AND THE BOOK: BOOK 9. JURIS DOCTOR ... BOTTINIUS by ROBERT BROWNING IN GOD'S ACRE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON TO WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ.; BY AN OLD SCHOOLFELLOW OF HIS by WILLIAM COWPER |