The Golden Wedding

David Gray (1838–1861)

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

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;

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

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!

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

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,

The water of that earlier board

To-night shall turn to wine.