In hours of respite from the strife
That kills the careless joy of life,
How often, friend, have you and I
Lived o’er those golden days gone by,
When eager hand and eager eye
Against the humming salt sea-breeze
Drove our light craft through breaking seas;
Or when beneath enchanted woods
We floated, where the shadow broods
On still black waters, and delayed
A little in the chequer’d shade
To watch, far down the shining stream,
The golden summer sunlight gleam
On the green banks of storied Boyne.
Ah, in those happy days how well
Did wood and field and water join
To weave the wild earth’s mighty spell!
Gone, gone! and you are also gone,
On dark tides that you sailed alone;
And scarcely more for you than me
Those days are done! O, morning sea,
Where all the morning in our blood
Sang, as we faced the glittering flood!
O, bays the wild sea-murmur fills,
And hot gorse-perfume from the hills!
O, lonely places, echoing
With sound of waters, wave or stream,
Haunted by timid foot and wing,
I see you now but in a dream—
Old days, old friends, we part, we part;
Yet still your memory in my heart
Lives, till the heart be dust; and then
Beyond this realm of Where and When,
Something of you shall linger yet,
And something in me not forget,
When all the suns of earth have set.
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