DEDICATION. FRIEND of old days, of suffering, storm, and strife, Patient and kind through many a wild appeal ; In the arena of thy brilliant life Never too busy or too cold to feel : Companion from whose ever teeming store Of thought and knowledge, happy memory brings So much of social wit and sage's lore, Garnered and gleaned by me as precious things: Kinsman of him whose very name soon grew Unreal as music heard in pleasant dreams, So vain the hope my girlish fancy drew, So faint and far his vanished presence seems. To thee I dedicate this record brief Of foreign scenes and deeds too little known; This tale of noble souls who conquered grief By dint of tending sufferings not their own. Thou hast known all my life: its pleasant hours, (How many of them have I owed to thee!) Its exercise of intellectual powers, With thoughts of fame and gladness not to be. Thou knowest how Death for ever dogged my way, And how of those I loved the best, and those Who loved and pitied me in life's young day, Narrow, and narrower still, the circle grows. Thou knowest-for thou hast proved-the dreary shade A first-born's loss casts over lonely days; And gone is now the pale fond smile, that made In my dim future, yet, a path of rays. Gone, the dear comfort of a voice whose sound Came like a beacon-bell, heard clear above The whirl of violent waters surging round; Speaking to shipwrecked ears of help and love. The joy that budded on my own youth's bloom, When life wore still a glory and a gloss, Is hidden from me in the silent tomb; Smiting with premature unnatural loss, So that my very soul is wrung with pain, Meeting old friends whom most I love to see. Where are the younger lives, since these remain ? I weep the eyes that should have wept for me! But all the more I cling to those who speak strange In early days: when I, of gifts made proud, Stood listening to thee in some brilliant crowd, With the warm triumph of a youthful smile. Oh! little now remains of all that was ! Even for this gift of linking measured words, |