The Old Man and Children

The Old Man and Children

Spring was busy in the woodlands,

Climbing up from peak to peak,

As an old man sat and brooded,

With a flush upon his cheek.

Many years pressed hard upon him,

And his living friends were few,

And from out the sombre future

Troubles drifted into view.

There is something move one strangely

In old ruins grey with years,

Yet there's something far more touching

In an old face wet with tears.

And he sat there sadly sighing

O'er his feebleness and wrongs,

Though the birds outside the window

Talked of summer in their songs.

But, behold, a change comes o'er him:

Where are all his sorrows now?

Could they leave his heart as quickly

As the gloom-clouds left his brow?

Up the green slope of the garden,

Past the dial, he saw run,

Three young girls, with bright eyes shining

Like their brown heads in the sun.

There was Fanny, famed for wisdom,

And fair Alice, famed for pride,

And one that could say "Uncle,"

And said little else beside.

And that vision startled memories

That soon hid all scenes of strife,

Sending floods of hallowed sunshine

Through the rugged rents of life.

Then they took him from his study,

Through lone lanes and tangled bowers,

Out into the shaded valleys,

Richly tinted o'er with flowers.

And he blessed their merry voices,

Singing round him as he went,

For the sight of their wild gladness

Filled his own heart with content.

And, that night, there came about him

Far-off meadows, pictured fair,

And old woods in which he wandered

Ere he knew the name of care;

And he said, "These angel faces

Take the whitness from one's hair."

Jas. Pritchett DDigg.

1:51, p. 4

7.7.1860