"O, give me back," I cried, "the vanished

splendors,

The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,

When the swift stream of life

Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders

The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap

Into the unknown deep!"

And the sea answered, with a lamentation,

Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,

"Alas! thy youth is dead!

It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation;

In the dark places with the dead of old

It lies forever cold!"

Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements

I will not drag this sacred dust again,

Only to give me pain;

But, still remembering all the lost endearments,

Go on my way, like one who looks before,
And turns to weep no more."

Into what land of harvests, what plantations

Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow

Of sunsets burning low;

Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations

Light up the spacious avenues between

This world and the unseen!

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,

What households, though not alien, yet not mine,

What bowers of rest divine;

To what temptations in lone wildernesses,

What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,

The bearing of what cross!

I do not know; nor will I vainly question

Those pages of the mystic book which hold

The story still untold,

But without rash conjecture or suggestion

Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,

But, instead, she builds me bridges

Over many a dark ravine,

Where beneath the gusty ridges

Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

And I cross them, little heeding

Blast of wind or torrent's roar,

As I follow the receding

Footsteps that have gone before.

Naught avails the imploring gesture,

Naught avails the cry of pain!

When I touch the flying vesture,

'Tis the gray robe of the rain.