The "Long Ago"

The "Long Ago"

Oh, a wonderful stream is the river of Time,

As it runs through the realms of tears,

With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a borad'ning sweep, and a surge sublime,

That bends with the ocean of years.

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow.

And the summers like buds between,

And the year in the sheaf—so they come and go
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,

As it glides through the shadow and sheen.

There's a musical isle on the river of time,

Where the softest of airs are playing:

There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,

And the [?] with the roses are staying.

And the name of this isle is the Long Ago,

And we bury our treasures there;

There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow—
There are heaps of dust, but we loved them so!

There are trinkets and tresses of hair.

There are fragments of songs that nobody sings,

And a part of an infant's prayer;

There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings.
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,

And the garment that SHE used to wear.

There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore

By the mirage is lifted in air;

And we sometimes hear through the turbulent roar
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,

When the wind down the river is fair.

Oh! remember for aye be the blessed isle,

All the days of our life till night—

When the evening comes with its beautiful smile,
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,

May our "greenwood" of soul be in sight?

Unattributed

1:6, p. 4

9.7.1861