THE LAST READER

I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree

And read my own sweet songs;

Though naught they may to others be,

Each humble line prolongs

A tone that might have passed away

But for that scarce remembered lay.

I keep them like a lock or leaf

That some dear girl has given;

Frail record of an hour, as brief

As sunset clouds in heaven,

But spreading purple twilight still

High over memory's shadowed hill.

They lie upon my pathway bleak,

Those flowers that once ran wild,

As on a father's careworn cheek

The ringlets of his child;

The golden mingling with the gray,

And stealing half its snows away.

What care I though the dust is spread

Around these yellow leaves,

Or o'er them his sarcastic thread

Oblivion's insect weaves

Though weeds are tangled on the stream,

It still reflects my morning's beam.

And therefore love I such as smile

On these neglected songs,

Nor deem that flattery's needless wile

My opening bosom wrongs;

For who would trample, at my side,

A few pale buds, my garden's pride?

It may be that my scanty ore

Long years have washed away,

And where were golden sands before

Is naught but common clay;

Still something sparkles in the sun

For memory to look back upon.

And when my name no more is heard,

My lyre no more is known,

Still let me, like a winter's bird,

In silence and alone,

Fold over them the weary wing

Once flashing through the dews of spring.

Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap

My youth in its decline,

And riot in the rosy lap

Of thoughts that once were mine,

And give the worm my little store

When the last reader reads no more!