I.
I stand on the bridge where last we stood
When young leaves played at their best.
The children called us from yonder wood,
And rock-doves crooned on the nest.
II.
Ah, yet you call,--in your gladness call,--
And I hear your pattering feet;
It does not matter, matter at all,
You fatherless children sweet,--
III.
It does not matter at all to you,
Young hearts that pleasure besets;
The father sleeps, but the world is new,
The child of his love forgets.
IV.
I too, it may be, before they drop,
The leaves that flicker to-day,
Ere bountiful gleams make ripe the crop,
Shall pass from my place away:
V.
Ere yon gray cygnet puts on her white,
Or snow lies soft on the wold,
Shall shut these eyes on the lovely light,
And leave the story untold.
VI.
Shall I tell it there? Ah, let that be,
For the warm pulse beats so high;
To love to-day, and to breathe and see,--
To-morrow perhaps to die,--
VII.
Leave it with God. But this I have known,
That sorrow is over soon;
Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone,
Forget by full of the moon.
VIII.
But if all loved, as the few can love,
This world would seldom be well;
And who need wish, if he dwells above,
For a deep, a long death knell.
IX.
There are four or five, who, passing this place,
While they live will name me yet;
And when I am gone will think on my face,
And feel a kind of regret.
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