"Ah! my heart is weary waiting, waiting for the May!"
Old thoughts come back from the old time,
Where, at even, the sunset light
Gilds wood and world, ere the glory dies,
And darkness gathers along the skies
And the world is left in night.

Old songs float round in the gloaming,
Sweet fragments that come and go;
They are echoes, I know, from the olden times,
Holy, as music vesper chimes,
In the days of "Long Ago!"

And faces shine in the firelight;
And laughter rings through the rooms;
And memories of bygone springtime eves
Come back to my lone heart that aches and grieves
In the chill of life's winter glooms,

Then, the May of love that I longed-for
Was hid in the future haze;
I dreamed it a land of joy unknown,
Where bliss and beauty would be my own
Through the length of life's fair days.

So in hope for the May I waited
As gay as the joyous hours
That sped so fast, on their lightsome wings
Thro' flowers, and sunlight, and glorious things
That lived in youth's fairy bowers;

But the hopes I nursed in that springtime—
Ah! me, but those times were bright!
Are withered now, and no fruit I see,
Though the blossoms were fair on every tree
In the glow of their promise-light!

Yet, when by the grave where I buried
Those hopes, I stand and weep,
I hear Faith say, as the storm-winds blow,—
"If in patience, and sorrow, and tears ye sow,
The guerdon of joy ye shall reap!"