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| AND doth not a meeting like this make amends | |
| For all the long years I ’ve been wand’ring away— | |
| To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, | |
| As smiling and kind as in that happy day? | |
| Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, | 5 |
| The snow-fall of Time may be stealing—what then? | |
| Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, | |
| We ’ll wear the gay tinge of Youth’s roses again. | |
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| What softened remembrances come o’er the heart, | |
| In gazing on those we ’ve been lost to so long! | 10 |
| The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part, | |
| Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng; | |
| As letters some hand hath invisibly traced, | |
| When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, | |
| So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced, | 15 |
| The warmth of a moment like this brings to light. | |
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| And thus, as in memory’s bark we shall glide, | |
| To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew, | |
| Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide, | |
| The wreck of full many a hope shining through; | 20 |
| Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers | |
| That once made a garden of all the gay shore, | |
| Deceived for a moment, we ’ll think them still ours, | |
| And breathe the fresh air of life’s morning once more. | |
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| So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most, | 25 |
| Is all we can have of the few we hold dear; | |
| And oft even joy is unheeded and lost | |
| For want of some heart that could echo it, near. | |
| Ah, well may we hope, when this short life is gone, | |
| To meet in some world of more permanent bliss; | 30 |
| For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hast’ning on, | |
| Is all we enjoy of each other in this. | |
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| But, come, the more rare such delights to the heart, | |
| The more we should welcome, and bless them the more; | |
| They ’re ours, when we meet—they are lost when we part— | 35 |
| Like birds that bring Summer, and fly when ’t is o’er. | |
| Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink, | |
| Let Sympathy pledge us, through pleasure, through pain, | |
| That, fast as a feeling but touches one link, | |
| Her magic shall send it direct through the chain. | 40 |
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