  I’m walking to-day with mem’ry Through the woodlands weird and still, With ghostly shadows around me, Haunting, and strange, and chill. Ominous clouds are gathering O’er a ghastly, threatening sky; The voice of the wind is grieving In the treetops bare and high. And the streams are stilled and sleeping, And under my onward tread The fallen leaves are rustling; And from the pale, silent dead By many a ruined bower; And tender, mystical murmurings, From many a pale dead flower; And a subtle song of summer, Of beautiful seasons fled, Of faces, voices, and ruined hopes, Sweet dreams, and the tears we shed; And sweet as the angels’ singing, Or the summer’s soft twilight, Or love asleep in fragrant bloom, Or the peaceful, dreamland night; And a love that waked to never die, A radiant and fadeless bloom That waning years cannot efface, An endless and golden noon. I revel at will with mem’ry By streams and rippling rills; My heart is wrapt in ecstasy, As I climb its shining hills. But list to the dirge of the wind Through the ever deep’ning gloom; See! ’tis falling, the death-white snow, Awak’ning my soul too soon. It whitens the lonely moorlands, And the forest glade and glen, The dreamy hills and silent vales Where the summer late hath been. And see how it swirls and eddies, Searching fiercely everywhere; It clasps in an icy embrace, Flurrying fast through the air. And thought grows heavy with pain, For it may be that never for me Will the summer come again. |
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