# Littell's Living Age/Volume 138/Issue 1779/Companions on the Road

* COMPANIONS ON THE ROAD.
* 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.
* Blackwood's Magazine.W. W. S..