And not the Past alone, with all its guerdon Of twilight sounds and shadows, bids them rise; But soft, above the noontide heat and burden Of the stern present, float those melodies. Not with the baron bold, the minstrel tender, Not with the ringing sound of shield and lance, Not with the Field of Gold in all its splendour, Died out the generous flame of old Romance. Still, on a nobler strife than tilt or tourney, Rides forth the errant knight, with brow elate; Still patient pilgrims take, in hope, their journey; Still meek and cloistered spirits ‘stand and wait.’ Still hath the living, moving, world around us, Its legends, fair with honour, bright with truth; Still, as in tales that in our childhood bound us, Love holds the fond traditions of its youth. We need not linger o’er the fading traces Of lost divinities; or seek to hold Their serious converse ’mid Earth’s green waste-places, Or by her lonely fountains, as of old: For, far remote from Nature’s fair creations, Within the busy mart, the crowded street, With sudden, sweet, unlooked-for revelations Of a bright presence we may chance to meet; E’en _now_, beside a restless tide’s commotion, I stand and hear, in broken music swell, Above the ebb and flow of Life’s great ocean, An under-song of greeting and farewell. For here are meetings: moments that inherit The hopes and wishes, that through months and years Have held such anxious converse with the spirit, That now its joy can only speak in tears; And here are partings: hands that soon must sever, Yet clasp the firmer; heart, that unto heart, Was ne’er so closely bound before, nor ever So near the other as when now they part; And here Time holds his steady pace unbroken, For all that crowds within his narrow scope; For all the language, uttered and unspoken, That will return when Memory comforts Hope! One short and hurried moment, and for ever Flies, like a dream, its sweetness and its pain; And, for the hearts that love, the hands that sever, Who knows what meetings are in store again? They who are left, unto their homes returning, With musing step, trace o’er each by-gone scene; And they upon their journey—doth no yearning, No backward glance, revert to what hath been? Yes! for awhile, perchance, a tear-drop starting, Dims the bright scenes that greet the eye and mind; But here—as ever in life’s cup of parting— Theirs is the bitterness who stay behind! So in life’s sternest, last farewell, may waken A yearning thought, a backward glance be thrown By them who leave: but oh! how blest the token, To those who stay behind when THEY are gone!