  By E. G. CHARLESWORTH. I met an old man in my way; For many years the light of day Had been to him but memory; Poor, blind, half-deaf, and lame was he: My heart was bent to sympathize, I looked toward the dead closed eyes, Hopeful, by some apt words, a light To bring to mingle with his night. A falling tide was on the sand. Slowly, that he might understand, I said, “The ebbing tide, and then the flood; The darkest hour, then the dawn; Death, then——” Some inner sun’s streaks in his face Shone on this image of his case, And twice, with Faith and Hope’s sunshine, He brightly filled my shortened line— Death, then the morn—Death, then the morn! decorative line For though you might not be able to break or bend the power of genius—the deeper the sea, the more precipitous the coast—yet in the most important initiatory decade of life, in the first, at the opening dawn of all feelings, you might surround and overlay the slumbering lion-energies with all the tender habits of a gentle heart, and all the bands of love.—Richter. decorative line |
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