The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-07-08


When we were young, ana life was fresh and
sweet
What shall say to yout What can say
Better than silence Is When survey
This tbrong OF faces turned to meet my own,
Friendly and lair and yet 10 me unknown,
Transformed the very landscape seems 10 be-
1t Is the same, yel not the same 20 me.
SO many memories crowd upon my brain.
so many ghosts are In the wooded PLAIN,
/ raIn would steal away. with noisless tread,
AS from house where some one lIetn dead.
I cannot go; pause hesitate;
My leet reluctant nger at the gate;
AS one who struggles IN q troubled dream
To speak ana cannot TO myself seem
Vanish the dream Vanish the Idle fears
Vanish the rolling msts OF nifty yearsi
Whatever time or space may intervene
l will not be a stranger In this scene.
Here every doubt, all lndecislon ends;
Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates,
friendsl
All me the nfty years since last we met
Seem to me fifty folios bound and set
BY Time, the great transc riber. on his shelves,
Wherein are written the histories OF ourselves.
What tragedies. what comedies, are there;
What Joy and grief what rapture and despair
What chronicles OF triumph and defeat,
OF struggle. and temptation. and retreati
What records OF regrets, and doubts, and fears
what pages plotted, clustered by our tears
What lovely landscapes on the margin shine,
What sweet, angelic faces, what divine
And molly images OF love and trust,
Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dustl
Whose hand shall dare to open and explore
These volumes, closed and casped for evermoref
Not mine. With reverential ieet pass;
near voice that cries, "Alasl alasl
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written DER again
The unwritten only sun belongs TO thee,
Take heed. and ponder well what that shall be-"
AS children frightened by thunder cloud
Are treasured II some one reads aloud
tale OF wonder, with enchantment fraught
Or wild adventure, that dtverts their thought,
Let me endeavor with tale to chase
The gathering shadows OF the time and place,
And Danish what we all too deeply feel
Wholly TO say, or wholly to conceal.
In mediaval Rome, know not where,
There stood an image with It's arm In air,
And ON its lifted finger, shining clear,
golden ring with the device. "Strtke heref'
Greatly the people wondered. though none guessed
The meaning that these words but nall expressed,
| Until a learned CLERK. who at MONDAY
| With downcast eyes, was passing on mis- way,
Paused. ana observed the spot ana marked it
WE'LL
| whereon the shadow OF the fnger fell;
| And, coming back at midnight, deved and found
| A secret stairway leading under ground.
| Dow this he passed into spacious hall,
| Lit By q flaming jewel on the wall;
| And oppO lite q brazen statue stood
With bow and snaft in threatening attitude.
Upon It's forehead, like q coronet,
We're these mysterious words OF menace sot:-
THAT which am, am; my fatal aim
None can escape, not even yon luminous namei"
Midway the nan was a fair table placed,
With cloth OF gold, and golden cups enchased
With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,
| And gold the bread and vlands manifold.
Around It, silent, motioness aud sad.
! Were seated gallant knights in armor clad,
| And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,
| But they were stone. their hearts within were
| stone;
And the vast hall was filled in every part
With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.
| Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed,
The trembling clerk in speeches. wonder gazed |;
Then rom the table, by his greed msds bold,
He seized goblet and a knife or gold,
| And suddenly from their seats the guests up
spraBg,
| The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang,
| The archer sped MS arrow, at their call,
| Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,
D
stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay deadt
The writer OF this legend then records
| Its ghostly application In these words:-
The image is the Adversary old.
Whose beekoning nnger points to realms OF gold;
Our lusts and passions are the downward stair
That leads the soul from OWNER air;
Tue archer Death; the flaming jewe, Life;
Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;
The knights and ladies', all whose 1esh and bone
by avarice have been hardened into stone;
The clerk, the scholar whom the love OF pelf
Tempts from his books and from his nobler sslL
The scholar and the world The endless strife,
The discord in the harmonies OF liel
The love oil learning, the sequestered hooks,
And all the sweet serenity OF books;
The market place, the eager love OF gain,
Whose aim Is vanity and whose end is painI
But why, you ask me, should this tale be told
To men grown old or who are growing old9
1t is too late An, nothing is too late
TIL the tired heart snail cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; sophocles
Wrote his grand Gdipus and Simonides
Bore OF the prize OF verses from his oompeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore
years;
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his Characters OF Men.
Chaucer, at WOODSTOCK with the nghtingaes,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at welmar, toiltng to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulfstream OF our youth may DOW
Into the arctic regions OF our lives.
Where little else than life itself survives
As tue barometer foretells the storm
wnIle stln the skies are clear, the weather warm,
so something in Us, as old age draws near,
Betfays the pressure OF the atmosphere.
The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,
Descends the elastic ladder OF the air;
The telltale blood in artery and vein
sinks from Its higher levels In the brain;
Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say Of It, old age Is still old age.
1t Is she waning, not the crescent moon,