DO you remember - can we e'er forget? -
How, in the coiled-perplexities of youth, In our wild climate, in our scowling town, We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain, The rare and welcome silence of the snows, The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night, The grimy spell of the nocturnal town, Do you remember? - Ah, could one forget!
As when the fevered sick that all night long Listed the wind intone, and hear at last The ever-welcome voice of chanticleer Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn, -With sudden ardour, these desire the day:
So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life We huddled with chimeras, from within -How sweet to hear! - the music swelled and fell, And through the breach of the revolving doors What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;Amid the glories of the house of life Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love Fall insignificant on my closing ears, What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind In our inclement city? what return But the image of the emptiness of youth, Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp, The momentary pictures gleam and fade And perish, and the night resurges - these Shall I remember, and then all forget.
Apemama.
