There comes a time for flowers to fade, and light to die in gloom,
There is a time for mortal bliss to know a certain doom.
Sometimes I feel that I have reached that hour, and I have felt,
When pondering o’er the dreary change, my spirit in me melt.
The joyful trust, the bounding hopes, that laughed at scorned defeat,
The feeling, like pure rock-born streams, as strong, as deep, and sweet;
The soul that thrilled with transport wild, at Beauty’s magic name;
Ah! all have strangely altered now,–I am no more the same.
And now I feel alone and sad amid an ocean wide,
I care not much to what strange coast my single plank may ride,
I am alone–what matters it where my bowed frame may be,
Since now my heart is never more by land or rolling sea.
I feel that as yon Night now throws its mantle o’er the earth,
Till ghostly shapes and ghostly sounds, go dimly walking forth–
That soon the night of Death may throw its mantle over me,
And unfamiliar things shall rise from dark eternity.
Yet, would I hope, when such shall come, to dwell not with pain,
But walk, with a triumphant song, o’er heaven’s unshadowed plain–
Where Youth and Hope, and Love and Joy, (the angels,) ever smile,
And evermore the aching heart from woe and grief beguile.
(James Avis Bartley)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Sadness Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Soul Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Name Poems, Hope Poems, Beauty Poems, Pain Poems, Smiling PoemsBased on Keywords: unshadowed, now-i, rock-born