As in a rose-jar filled with petals sweet

Blown long ago in some old garden place,

Mayhap, where you and I, a little space,

Drank deep of love and knew that love was fleet—

Or leaves once gathered from a lost retreat

By one who never will again retrace

Her silent footsteps—one, whose gentle face

Was fairer than the roses at her feet;

So, deep within the vase of memory,

I keep my dust of roses fresh and dear

As in the days before I knew the smart

Of time and death. Nor aught can take from me

The haunting fragrance that still lingers here—

As in a rose-jar, so within my heart!

There is an island in the silent sea,

Whose marge the wistful waves lap listlessly—

An isle of rest for those who used to be.

For ne’er an echo wakes that towering wall,

Whose blackened crags answer none other call

Save the lone ocean’s rhythmic rise and fall.

Only the song the sea sings as she laves

That sleep-bound shore with sad caressing waves,

The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.

’Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb,

Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom,

Breathing in death the moon-flower’s rank perfume.

They know not when slow barges on the mere

Enter the portals of that place austere—

Enter and so forever disappear!

And in this island of a silent sea,

Whose marge e’er wistful waves lap listlessly,

Is rest,—is peace for all eternity.

Over the hills where the pine-trees grow,

With a laugh to answer the wind at play.

Why do I laugh? I do not know,

But you and I once passed this way.

Down in the hollow now white with snow

My heart is singing a song today.

Why do I sing? I do not know,

But you and I were here in May.

When April spreads her mantle green

Across the pasture-lands of snow,

And Spring’s first scarlet breasts are seen

Where treetops rustle to and fro;

Then come fair fragrant dreams as though

Our lightest fancy to entrance

And paint us what we fain would know

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Anon, we see the golden sheen

Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw,

Flashing the poplars tall between,

As knights ride by to meet the foe;

Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow

On slender pipes, a pastoral dance—

Ah, strong were they in weal and woe

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!

But now the vast years intervene,

The fountain long has ceased its flow,

And silence rules the lone demesne

That once held such a goodly show;

Yet time, at least, does this bestow

Nor leave the best to fleeting chance—

They live again in fancy’s glow

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Sweet, still for us some blossoms grow

From out that dim and dear expanse—

Come, take my hand and we shall go

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!

I heard a voice from the far away

Softly say this to me—

“You will find the heart of the world some day

And the why of the things that be;

You will see the grief of the yea and nay

And the price of frailty.

“And upon your lute you will weave a theme

Which the world will harken and know;

For every note of the song will teem

With a great soul’s overflow—

You will speak the meaning within a dream

And the pain in the afterglow.

“But for all of this there’s a price—

’Tis the price of minstrelsy—

You will never have of the things you play,

Sad singer of poetry,

And throughout your life you will go for aye,

Heart-hungry and silently!”

I heard a voice from the far away

Softly say this to me.

Throughout the vale again Narcissus cries

And Echo answers from her dark retreat,

While Zephyr heavy-laden with the sweet,

Fresh scent of blooms across the pasture hies;

Above, the blueness of the April skies,

Matched by the lure unto the wandering feet

That e’er must go ere Spring could be complete

To the green wood where laughing Eros lies.

O April lover, hear the pipes that call,

The pipes of Pan a-blowing lustily,

They call to you and me, and he who hears

Must ever after be Young April’s thrall—

So, faring thus together, we shall see

The Islands of the Blest between the Spheres!

I held you in my arms—so happy I,

Who quite forgot the while that moments fly;

Nor ever dreamed that they could pass away,

Till it was yesterday.

Yet, just because that hour was long ago

And seems to me so near—well, this I know

That sometime I shall clasp your hand and say:

Was there a yesterday?