Life's milestones, marking year on year,
Pass ever swifter as we near
The final goal, the silent end
To which our fated footsteps tend.
A year once seemed a century,
Now like a day it hurries by,
And doubts and fears our hearts oppress,
And all the way is weariness.
Ah me! how glad and gay we were,
Youth's sap in all our veins astir,
When long ago with spirits high,
A happy, careless company,
We started forth, when everything
Wore the green glory of the spring,
And all the fair wide world was ours,
To gather as we would its flowers!
Then, life almost eternal seemed,
And death a dream so vaguely dreamed,
That in the distance scarce it threw
A cloud-shade on the mountains blue,
That rose before us soft and fair,
Clothed in ideal hues of air,
To which we meant in after-time,
Strong in our manhood's strength, to climb.
How all has changed! Years have gone by,
And of that joyous company
With whom our youth first journeyed on,
Who — who are left? Alas, not one!
Love earliest loitered on the way,
Then turned his face and slipped away;
And after him with footsteps light
The fickle Graces took their flight,
And all the careless joys that lent
Their revelry and merriment
Grew silenter, and, ere we knew,
Had smiled their last and said "adieu."
Hope faltering then with doubtful mind,
Began to turn and look behind,
And we, half questioning, were fain
To follow with her back again;
But Fate still urged us on our way
And would not let us pause or stay.
Then to our side with plaintive eye,
In place of Hope came Memory,
And murmured of the past, and told
Dear stories of the days of old,
Until its very dross seemed gold,
And Friendship took the place of Love,
And strove in vain to us to prove
That Love was light and insincere —
Not worth a man's regretful tear.
Ah! all in vain — grant 'twas a cheat,
Yet no voice ever was so sweet,
No presence like to Love's, who threw
Enchantment over all we knew;
And still we listen with a sigh,
And back, with fond tears in the eye,
We gaze to catch a glimpse again
Of that dear place — but all in vain.
Preach not, O stern Philosophy!
Nought we can have, and nought we see,
Will ever be so pure, so glad,
So beautiful, as what we had.
Our steps are sad, our steps are slow,
Nothing is like the long ago.
Gone is the keen, intense delight,
The perfume faint and exquisite,
The glory and the effluence
That haloed the enraptured sense,
When Faith and Love were at our side,
And common life was deified.
Our shadows that we used to throw
Behind us, now before us grow;
For once we walked towards the sun,
But now, life's full meridian done,
They change, and in their chill we move,
Further away from Faith and Love.
A chill is in the air — no more
Our thoughts with joyous impulse soar,
But creep along the level way,
Waiting the closing of the day.
The future holds no wondrous prize
This side death's awful mysteries;
Beyond, what waits for us, who knows?
New life, or infinite repose?
Blackwood's Magazine.