Reminiscent Poems , from Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems Volume II., the Works of Whittier

Excerpt

A beautiful and happy girl,With step as light as summer air,Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,Shadowed by many a careless curlOf unconfined and flowing hair;A seeming child in everything,Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,As Nature wears the smile of SpringWhen sinking into Summer's arms.

A mind rejoicing in the lightWhich melted through its graceful bower,Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,And stainless in its holy white,Unfolding like a morning flowerA heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,With every breath of feeling woke,And, even when the tongue was mute,From eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chainOf memory, at the thought of thee!Old hopes which long in dust have lainOld dreams, come thronging back again,And boyhood lives again in me;I feel its glow upon my cheek,Its fulness of the heart is mine,As when I leaned to hear thee speak,Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.

I hear again thy low replies,I feel thy arm within my own,And timidly again upriseThe fringed lids of hazel eyes,With soft brown tresses overblown.Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,Of moonlit wave and willowy way,Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,And smiles and tones more dear than they!

Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiledMy picture of thy youth to see,When, half a woman, half a child,Thy very artlessness beguiled,And folly's self seemed wise in thee;I too can smile, when o'er that hourThe lights of memory backward stream,Yet feel the while that manhood's powerIs vainer than my boyhood's dream.

Years have passed on, and left their trace,Of graver care and deeper thought;And unto me the calm, cold faceOf manhood, and to thee the graceOf woman's pensive beauty brought.More wide, perchance, for blame than praise,The school-boy's humble name has flown;Thine, in the green and quiet waysOf unobtrusive goodness known.

And wider yet in thought and deedDiverge our pathways, one in youth;Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,While answers to my spirit's needThe Derby dalesman's simple truth.For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,And holy day, and solemn psalm;For me, the silent reverence whereMy brethren gather, slow and calm.

Yet hath thy spirit left on meAn impress Time has worn not out,And something of myself in thee,A shadow from the past, I see,Lingering, even yet, thy way about;Not wholly can the heart unlearnThat lesson of its better hours,Not yet has Time's dull footstep wornTo common dust that path of flowers.

Thus, while at times before our eyesThe shadows melt, and fall apart,And, smiling through them, round us liesThe warm light of our morning skies,—The Indian Summer of the heart!In secret sympathies of mind,In founts of feeling which retainTheir pure, fresh flow, we yet may findOur early dreams not wholly vain1841.

Suggested by the portrait of Raphael, at the age of fifteen.

I shall not soon forget that sightThe glow of Autumn's westering day,A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,On Raphael's picture lay....