The Song Of Yesterday

I     But yesterday     I looked away     O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay     In golden blots     Inlaid with spots     Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.     My head was fair     With flaxen hair,     And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,     And warm with drouth     From out the south,     Blew all my curls across my mouth.     And, cool and sweet,     My naked feet     Found dewy pathways through the wheat;     And out again     Where, down the lane,     The dust was dimpled with the rain.     II     But yesterday: -     Adream, astray,     From morning's red to evening's gray,     O'er dales and hills     Of daffodils     And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.     I knew nor cares     Nor tears nor prayers -     A mortal god, crowned unawares     With sunset - and     A scepter-wand     Of apple-blossoms in my hand!     The dewy blue     Of twilight grew     To purple, with a star or two     Whose lisping rays     Failed in the blaze     Of sudden fireflies through the haze.     III     But yesterday     I heard the lay     Of summer birds, when I, as they     With breast and wing,     All quivering     With life and love, could only sing.     My head was lent     Where, with it, blent     A maiden's o'er her instrument;     While all the night,     From vale to height,     Was filled with echoes of delight.     And all our dreams     Were lit with gleams     Of that lost land of reedy streams.     Along whose brim     Forever swim     Pan's lilies, laughing up at him.     IV     But yesterday!...     O blooms of May,     And summer roses - where-away?     O stars above;     And lips of love,     And all the honeyed sweets thereof! -     O lad and lass,     And orchard pass,     And briered lane, and daisied grass!     O gleam and gloom,     And woodland bloom,     And breezy breaths of all perfume! -     No more for me     Or mine shall be     Thy raptures - save in memory, -     No more - no more -     Till through the Door     Of Glory gleam the days of yore.