LOOKING BEFORE AND AFTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 7, 18 February 1893, Page 157

LOOKING BEFORE AND AFTER.

All is not lost, though much is changed and dimmed Though tamed the eager torrent of desire, And sobered, dashed, or dead the hopes that rimmed The morning hills of time with magic fire.

The loyal love that wears not custom’s rust, The faith still firmest found when hardest tried, The calm, the charity, the judgment just, That fail not as the years that sadden glide ;

The afterglow of youth’s pure faded dream, The holy hush of memory—these we keep ; Sunset benignly lingers, and life’s stream Is rosy as it wanders to the deep.

Sweet still earth’s air to taste, heaven's light to see, Still smiles o’er-tost, o’er tranquil main, the moon, As glad it is in Spring to breathe, to be. As kind the comfort of the river’s tune.

Still gentle Robin sings a soft ‘ Good night ’ From a mimosa-branch above the lawn, Untired shouts an anthem bright Through his lone kingdom of the twilight dawn. Joseph Truman.