Reply to When You and I Were Young, Maggie

From the Newark Evening Star, April 28, 1915.

The past we can never recall,
    It fled with our youth long ago;
But its joys and its memories all
    Are ours while we linger below;
The murmuring brook may be dry,
    And hushed be the voice of the mill,
But the songs that they sang cannot die
    While pleasures of memory thrill.

And daisies will deck the green vale
    And bird-notes hang over the hill,
And other lips tell the sweet tale,
    When we shall be silent and still.

The green above is gone, it is true,
    But broad blades of bright waving corn
Are gemmed with bright diamonds of dew
    Where blithesome birds greeted the morn;
The corn is as green as the grove,
    The birds sing as sweetly as then,
And we live the past o’er in our love
    And feel all its pleasures again.

In that city so silent and lone,
    Where loved ones so peacefully sleep,
There lies a dear darling, our own,
    Whom angels have taken to keep.
The roses that blossom and fall,
    And cover her sunny brown hair,
Sweet fragrance will shed over all,
    When we shall be slumbering there.

Say not we are feeble with age,
    For age cannot lessen our love.
This earth-life is but for a span,
    Eternity waits us above.
The trials of life we have borne,
    With trustfulness, patience and truth;
The past let us never more mourn,
    There’s a realm of perennial youth.