Twenty years hence, some fading day,

Will you through this green orchard stray,

With thoughts afar

On golden hours we freely spent,

And bought the merchandise, content,

At Time's bazaar?

You'll say—"He puffed the smoke in rings;

We talked of books, and other things;

Devised a plot;

Together wove some idle rhymes

Of coloured threads that matched sometimes,

And sometimes not.

"The oriole from his chosen tree

Made better poetry than we,

About his nest.

Soft paced the hours like clouds, until

There rose a poem better still

Far in the west."

Twenty years hence! Across the sky

The swift incessant swallows fly.

You'll not forget

The bees, nor how the oriole sung,

Twenty years since, when we were young,

His chansonette?

"Margaret, Margaret!" Some one calls!

"Margaret, come. The night dew falls,

The grass is wet."

Twenty years hence—The lawn is dark,

And the whip-poor-wills are wailing. Hark!

"Margaret! Margaret!"