“Yesterdays”

Gone! and they return no more,

But they leave a light in the heart;

The murmur of waves that kiss a shore

Will never, I know, depart.

Gone! yet with us still they stay,

And their memories throb through life;

The music that hushes or stirs to-day,

Is toned by their calm or strife.

Gone! and yet they never go!

We kneel at the shrine of time:

‘ Tis a mystery no man may know,

Nor tell in a poet's rhyme.