# After Many Years

aka "A Song of Other Days"
The song that once I dreamed about,  The tender, touching thing, As radiant as the rose without,  The love of wind and wing: The perfect verses, to the tune  Of woodland music set, As beautiful as afternoon,  Remain unwritten yet.
It is too late to write them now —  The ancient fire is cold; No ardent lights illume the brow,  As in the days of old. I cannot dream the dream again;  But, when the happy birds Are singing in the sunny rain,  I think I hear its words.
I think I hear the echo still  Of long-forgotten tones, When evening winds are on the hill  And sunset fires the cones; But only in the hours supreme,  With songs of land and sea, The lyrics of the leaf and stream,  This echo comes to me.
No longer doth the earth reveal  Her gracious green and gold; I sit where youth was once, and feel  That I am growing old. The lustre from the face of things  Is wearing all away; Like one who halts with tired wings,  I rest and muse to-day.
There is a river in the range  I love to think about; Perhaps the searching feet of change  Have never found it out. Ah! oftentimes I used to look  Upon its banks, and long To steal the beauty of that brook  And put it in a song.
I wonder if the slopes of moss,  In dreams so dear to me — The falls of flower, and flower-like floss —  Are as they used to be! I wonder if the waterfalls,  The singers far and fair, That gleamed between the wet, green walls,  Are still the marvels there!
Ah! let me hope that in that place  Those old familiar things To which I turn a wistful face  Have never taken wings. Let me retain the fancy still  That, past the lordly range, There always shines, in folds of hill,  One spot secure from change!
I trust that yet the tender screen  That shades a certain nook Remains, with all its gold and green,  The glory of the brook. It hides a secret to the birds  And waters only known: The letters of two lovely words —  A poem on a stone.
Perhaps the lady of the past  Upon these lines may light, The purest verses, and the last,  That I may ever write: She need not fear a word of blame:  Her tale the flowers keep — The wind that heard me breathe her name  Has been for years asleep.
But in the night, and when the rain  The troubled torrent fills, I often think I see again  The river in the hills; And when the day is very near,  And birds are on the wing, My spirit fancies it can hear  The song I cannot sing.
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired. According to Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright, the following works are public domain:
* published non-government works whose author died before January 1, 1955,
* anonymous or pseudonymous works and photographs published before January 1, 1955, and
* government works published more than 50 years ago (before January 1, 1974).
This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in Australia on the URAA date (January 1, 1996). This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.
Because the Australian copyright term in 1996 was 50 years, the critical date for copyright in the United States under the URAA is January 1, 1946.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse