Poems (Ford)/The Olden Time

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THE OLDEN TIME.
The dear old days of the long-ago,  Their memory haunts us yet,Like fragments of some sweet old song  That the heart can not forget;Their hours rolled by in harmony,  Like a silvery vesper chime:Bright pictures graved on the heart's broad page  Are the days of the olden time.
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As sadly out on the evening bell  The knell of a dead day rings,Some high resolve may strive to call  From the heart-harp's quivering stringsA stanza of our grand life-hymn  In a strain of power sublime,But the notes are drowned in the tears that fall  At the thought of the olden time.
The friends we loved in the olden time,  Although, severed far and wideBy Fortune's gales, our life-boats drift  Over Time's resistless tide,Seem near us still as some joyous laugh  Rings out like a silvery chime;For the hearts were light and the laughter gay  That we loved in the olden time.
When the pain and pleasure, storm and strife  And glory of earth are o'er,When the requiem of a dead world rings  On the far eternal shore,In the anthem grand of a higher life  May we join in strians sublimeWith the friends who made the hours so bright  In the happy olden time.
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