In that old summer can you still recall
⁠The pomp with which the strong sun rose and set,
How bright the moon- shone on the shining fields,
⁠What wild, sweet blossoms with the dew were wet?

Can you still hear the merry robins sing,
⁠And see the brave red lilies gleam and glow,
The waiting wealth of bloom, the reckless bees,
⁠That woo their wild-flower loves, and sting, and go?

Canst hear the waves that round the happy shore
⁠Broke in soft joy, and told delusive tales —
We go, but we return; love comes and goes;
⁠And eyes that watch see homeward-faring sails.
"'Twas thus in other seasons?" Ah, may be!
⁠But I forgot them, and remembered this —
A brief, warm season, and a fond, brief love,
⁠And cold, white winter after bloom and bliss.

Sleep, lily on the lake,
⁠Without one troubled dream
Thy hushed repose to break,
⁠Until the morning beam
Shall open thy glad heart again;
To live its life apart from pain.

So still is thy repose,
⁠So pure thy petals seem,
As heaven would here disclose
⁠Its peace, and we might deem
A soul in each white lily lay,
Passionless, from the lands of day.

Yet but a flower thou art,
⁠For angel ne'er or saint,
Though kept on earth apart
⁠From every earthly taint,
A life so passionless could know,
Amid a world of human woe.

She lifts to-day her fairy bells
⁠For balmy winds to sway,
And round her cells the brown bee tells
⁠The music of the May.
She treasures in her snowy cup
⁠The sunbeam's golden light,
And brims the dainty chalice up
⁠With starry pearls of night.
She calls my heart as in a trance
⁠To years long passed away;
I feel once more the gentle glance
⁠That lit my life's young day.
O blooms so sweet, the blooms she wore —
⁠And she as fair as they! —
Your spell can give my heart no more
⁠The lily of its May!

I count my treasures o'er and o'er
Gifts of the past, a golden store,
And time can give me nothing more.

The little ring she used to wear,
A shadow picture, sweet and fair,
Dead violets, and a tress of hair.

Frail keys, that ope to bygone time,
I wander on and reach a clime
Where bells of morning ever chime.

There all my fair possessions lie,
My castles that no wealth can buy
Their golden summits in the sky.

O youth, to feel death's breath of frost!
O little hands too early crossed!
Nor love nor faith can count you lost.

Why does this feeling of unrest
Deep rooted live within my breast?
I have no reason to complain
Of fickle fortune, and no stain
Or memory of evil haunts me.
What have I sown that I should reap
The whirlwind, — that I cannot — sleep
Or waking — ever be at ease?
I look among my treasures rare,
My treasures rich beyond compare,
I search them idly through and through,
And 'though I have but few, but few,
The one of all to me most dear,
Alas! I do not find it here.

You ask what jewel have I lost,
Of such immensity and cost,
And who the culprit bold can be
Who stole my peace of mind from me.
A woman is the criminal.
She has such eyes of heav'nly blue,
That speak of heart and soul so true,
I fear I cannot prove her guilt;
For judge and jury will refuse
To hear the pleading of my muse,
To listen to a charge of theft
From one of reason almost 'reft, —
They'll not believe the story, mine,
'Gainst honest face and eyes as thine.