A RECOLLECTION

Clouds of sorrow cannot hide

Gleams of sunshine gilding hours

Of happy memory, sweet as flowers

Ever blooming by the wayside,

Thronged with thorn and thistle.

Reapers binding sheaves of plenty,

Think the golden dreams of twenty

Thrill them deepest; and the whistle

Of some lone love-dreaming bird

In the meadow, wakes to memory

Notes now hushed, but sweeter than the

Ear of mortal ever heard.

‘ Neath the cliffs near by the river

Long cymes of honey-suckle grew,

Odorous in the air; and the violet, too,

Entangling with the phlox, and ever

Entessellated beds of petal'd mosaic

Stretching out before us, rich

As the drapery of a dream in which

The toil of life was not prosaic.

Neither can the hungry ear

Enfashion music softer, sweeter,

Drawn from lyre, than the meter —

Rippling cascade trickling near.