“THOSE DAYS ARE LONG DEPARTED.”

Those days are long departed,

Gone where the dead dreams are,

Since we two children started

To look for the morning star.

We asked our way of the swallow

In his language that we knew,

We were sad we could not follow

So swift the dark bird flew.

We set our wherry drifting

Between the poplar trees,

And the banks of meadows shifting

Were the shores of unknown seas.

We talked of the white snow prairies

That lie by the Northern lights,

And of woodlands where the fairies

Are seen in the moonlit nights.

Till one long day was over

And we grew too tired to roam,

And through the corn and clover

We slowly wandered home.

Ah child! with love and laughter

We had journeyed out so far;

We who went in the big years after

To look for another star;

But I go unbefriended

Through wind and rain and foam,—

One day was hardly ended

When the angel took you home.