A murmuring music filled the room;
The air grew sweet with spring-time flowers;
The clock ticked softer on the wall,
As loth to count immortal hours.
My world is peopled not alone
By those its daily life who share;
The loved whom other years have known
Descend from their diviner air,
As one might come from over sea,
Or down the street to sit with me
And make the fairest morn more fair;
And mine are earth and sun and star,
With friends who were and friends who are.
They are the same as when they went—
Tender and true and still my own;
But rarer beauty Heaven has lent,
As if some wind of God had blown
All trace of doubt and care and dole
From each serene, enfranchised soul,
And they could never more make moan!—
Yet my unlikeness cannot bar
From friends who were and friends who are.
O pure and blessed presences
That enter, noiseless as the light,
From your celestial pleasances,
What welcome waits you, dawn or night!
And in the sweetness, the repose,
My common room a temple grows,
All rosy bloom and stainless white,
Where I commune, no fear to mar,
With friends who were and friends who are.
Yet not to outward sight they come;
A finer sense their presence tells;
As when, from winter cold and dumb,
Unseen the south wind wakes the dells—
The south wind and the silent sun—
While robins sing and brooklets run
And every bud with rapture swells!
Such soul of spring, such Avatar,
Come friends who were and friends who are.