| |
| THIS is the place. Stand still, my steed, | |
| Let me review the scene, | |
| And summon from the shadowy Past | |
| The forms that once have been. | |
| |
| The Past and Present here unite | 5 |
| Beneath Time’s flowing tide, | |
| Like footprints hidden by a brook, | |
| But seen on either side. | |
| |
| Here runs the highway to the town; | |
| There the green lane descends, | 10 |
| Through which I walked to church with thee, | |
| O gentlest of my friends! | |
| |
| The shadow of the linden-trees | |
| Lay moving on the grass; | |
| Between them and the moving boughs, | 15 |
| A shadow, thou didst pass. | |
| |
| Thy dress was like the lilies, | |
| And thy heart as pure as they: | |
| One of God’s holy messengers | |
| Did walk with me that day. | 20 |
| |
| I saw the branches of the trees | |
| Bend down thy touch to meet, | |
| The clover-blossoms in the grass | |
| Rise up to kiss thy feet. | |
| |
| “Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, | 25 |
| Of earth and folly born!” | |
| Solemnly sang the village choir | |
| On that sweet Sabbath morn. | |
| |
| Through the closed blinds the golden sun | |
| Poured in a dusty beam, | 30 |
| Like the celestial ladder seen | |
| By Jacob in his dream. | |
| |
| And ever and anon, the wind, | |
| Sweet-scented with the hay, | |
| Turned o’er the hymn-book’s fluttering leaves | 35 |
| That on the window lay. | |
| |
| Long was the good man’s sermon, | |
| Yet it seemed not so to me; | |
| For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, | |
| And still I thought of thee. | 40 |
| |
| Long was the prayer he uttered, | |
| Yet it seemed not so to me; | |
| For in my heart I prayed with him, | |
| And still I thought of thee. | |
| |
| But now, alas! the place seems changed; | 45 |
| Thou art no longer here: | |
| Part of the sunshine of the scene | |
| With thee did disappear. | |
| |
| Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, | |
| Like pine-trees dark and high, | 50 |
| Subdue the light of noon, and breathe | |
| A low and ceaseless sigh; | |
| |
| This memory brightens o’er the past, | |
| As when the sun, concealed | |
| Behind some cloud that near us hangs, | 55 |
| Shines on a distant field. | |
| |
