| |
| O LOVE, whose patient pilgrim feet | |
| Life’s longest path have trod, | |
| Whose ministry hath symbolled sweet | |
| The dearer love of God,— | |
| The sacred myrtle wreathes again | 5 |
| Thine altar, as of old; | |
| And what was green with summer then, | |
| Is mellowed, now, to gold. | |
| |
| Not now, as then, the Future’s face | |
| Is flushed with fancy’s light; | 10 |
| But Memory, with a milder grace, | |
| Shall rule the feast to-night. | |
| Blest was the sun of joy that shone, | |
| Nor less the blinding shower— | |
| The bud of fifty years agone | 15 |
| Is Love’s perfected flower. | |
| |
| O Memory, ope thy mystic door! | |
| O dream of youth, return! | |
| And let the lights that gleamed of yore | |
| Beside this altar burn! | 20 |
| The past is plain; ’t was Love designed | |
| E’en Sorrow’s iron chain, | |
| And Mercy’s shining thread has twined | |
| With the dark warp of Pain. | |
| |
| So be it still. O thou who hast | 25 |
| That younger bridal blest, | |
| Till the May-morn of love has passed | |
| To evening’s golden west, | |
| Come to this later Cana, Lord, | |
| And, at thy touch divine, | 30 |
| The water of that earlier board | |
| To-night shall turn to wine. | |
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