Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804-1845)

Yesterday

Pale pilgrim of the heavens, that late didst glide

With sunbeam staff the violet vales along,

Where fountains of fresh dew gushed up in song,

To bathe thy golden feet and then subside--

Last wave that sparkled on time's ebbing tide--

How are thy bright limbs laid amid the throng

Of vanished days, that drooped over earthly wrong,

Seeing how virtue is to vice allied,

And vanished blushingly.

Sad Yesterday!

Night's winding-sheet is round thee, and the eyes

That found a health or fever in thy ray

And thoughtfully perused on evening skies

Thine elegy, star-lettered--now away

Turn their brief thoughts of thee, and thus men moralize.

A liberal worldling, gay philosopher,

Art thou that liftst thy young and yellow head

Over the dim burial of the scarce-cold dead,

Building above thy brother's sepulchre

A home of love that sense might almost err,

Deeming thy end therein to woo and wed

The flower-haired earth for ever. Yet the red

In yonder west may well such dreams deter!

Yes, thou, all-hailed To-day! whose outstretched hand

Scatters loose riches on a bankrupt land,

Even thou art but a leaf from off the tree

Of yellowing time; a grain of glistening sand

Dashed from the waters of that unsailed sea

Where thou to-night shalt sink, and I as soon may be.

Gaily and greenly let my seasons run:

And should the war-winds of the world uproot

The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit

Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun;

The dews be turned to ice--fair days begun

In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit

Despair and discord keep Hope's harp-string mute;

Still let me live as Love and Life were one:

Still let me turn on earth a child-like gaze,

And trust the whispered charities that bring

Tidings of human truth; with inward praise

Watch the weak motion of each common thing

And find it glorious--still let me raise

On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring.

(Text of last poem from from Sonnets of This Century.)