Poems: Old and New

by Frederick George Scott

 

OLD LETTERS .

 
THE house was silent, and the light
   Was fading from the western glow;
I read, till tears had dimmed my sight,
   Some letters written long ago.

The voices that have passed away,
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   The faces that have turned to mould,
Were round me in the room to-day,
   And laughed and chatted as of old.

The thoughts that youth was wont to think,
   The hopes now dead for evermore,
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Came from the lines of faded ink,
   As sweet and earnest as of yore.

I laid the letters by, and dreamed
   The dear dead past to life again;
The present and its purpose seemed
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   A fading vision full of pain. [Page 110]

Then, with a sudden shout of glee,
   The children burst into the room;
Their little faces were to me
    As sunrise in the cloud of gloom.
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The world was full of meaning still,
   For love will live though loved ones die;
I turned upon life’s darkened hill
   And gloried in the morning sky. [Page 111]