ECHOES

By the way of blowing roses, in the laughter-laden years,

Happy lads and lightsome lasses tripped the song-sweet lanes with me;

Gladness woke the hillside echoes in the sound of ringing cheers,

Rapture rippled on the breezes sweeping from the rippled sea.

Happy lads have left the hillside for a bourne beyond the bay,

Lightsome lasses know not laughter hid beneath enduring stone;

Echoes of a strangled sorrow in the sea mist far away,

Haunt the lanes where song is silent and the roses all are blown.