THE PAST RECALLING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10088, 25 March 1896, Page 3

THE PAST RECALLING.

I am standing by the stream, with its quiv'riug silver sheen, Where the nodding rushes bend beneath the breeze, When the bitd within its nest, welcomes night and

coming rest, flings its evening song of praise amongst the trees, litre together, she and 1, in the years that have gone by, Used to listen to the singer and the song; Bat the voiceless night has come, and the worker's work is done, She who listened with me then is gone.

I am wandering down the path, where the mem'ry of her laugh, With Its many rippling waves of love untold, Haunts me like a sobbing sigh, when I think how ' she and I, . Built our future and our castles out of gold. But the reaper came one day, bore the fairest flower away, Stilled the song and hashed the laughter evermore, Laid the curly head to rest, on an angel gleaner's , .breast Winged its flight beyond tlw ever-distant shore. In the city's roar and strife, in the endless stream of life, In the struggle and the light for daily bread, In the night that's changed to day, with its laughter, sonp, and play, In the thunder of the toiler's mighty tread; I can hear tho cadence falling, the past is fast recalling, "What might have been' is but a fading glow. As the voice of gentle time changes sigh, and song, and rhyme, Just so softly that we never, never know.

lam praying; canst thou hear me ? lam lonesome; art thou near me? Like a light beyond the restless sea of time. All! the heart that's blind with sorrow can see no bright to morrow; ' Never looks beyond the present to the hoie;hts that always shine. Still I .hear the cadence falling; the past is past recalling, What has been thine will be again thine own; When beyond the flight of years, through a burning mist of tears, There breaks upon the vision the magic place called " Home."