Debris | Page 9

you and me.
Good-bye! Good-bye!
IN THE TWILIGHT.
In the twilight gray and shadowy,
Deepening o'er the sunset's glow,

Softly through the mystic dimness
Flitting shadows come and go.
As my thoughts in listless wandering
With these phantom shadows
fly,
Meseems they wear the forms of faces,
Faces loved in days
gone by.
One by one I recognize them
As they silent gather near;
Some are
loving, childish faces,
Knowing naught of grief or care.
Some are blooming, youthful faces,
Victory confident to win,
Some
are from the contest shrinking,
Wearied with the strife and din.
Some are aged, wrinkled faces,
Time life's sands has nearly run;

Not a leaflet spared of Springtime,
Not a furrow left undone.
Other faces, sweet, sad faces,
Wafted o'er the Lethean sea,
Radiant
smile in twilight shadows,
But they came not back to me.
In the twilight, dreamy twilight,
When the sultry day is gone,

Quietly o'er vale and hillside,
Tenderly as blush of dawn,
Come the timid evening breezes,
Sighing through the Summer leaves,

Transient as thought's pencil-paintings,
Sweet as weft that fancy
weaves.
And as shadows in the twilight
Shapeful forms of faces wear,
So
these dainty, light-winged zephyrs,
To my hearing, voices are.
Voices whose sad intonations
Seemingly, as flit they past,
Bring to

memory hopes long shattered,
Blissful dreams too bright to last.
Voices, merry laughing voices,
Fondly loved in other years,

Mournfully are whispering to me
That their mirth was drowned in
tears.
Telling of a fairer fortune
Far away 'neath tropic skies,
Telling of a
broken circle,
Scattered friends and severed ties.
Other kindly, loving voices,
Winning in the long ago,
Tell me now,
as then they told me,
"Thou canst live for weal or woe."
Are these weird and mystic voices
But creations of the brain?
Only
in illusive fancy
Must I hear their tones again?
Would some magic power lend me
Aid to stay the witching tone,

Art to pain the beauteous picture
Ere its impress swift has flown.

While I dreamed the day has faded,
Stars are shining overhead,

Evening winds have ceased to whisper,
Twilight's shadows all have
fled.
Thus, too oft, our life-work seemeth,
And we, when disowned its
sway,
Find we are pursuing phantoms,
Shadows in the twilight
gray.
HOME.
"How many times and oft" has the sweet, sweet word been sung in
song and told in story. And he sang sweetest of home, who had never a
home on earth. If one to whom home was only a poet's dream, could
portray its charms by only imagination, until a million hearts thrilled
with responsive echo, how deeper, how more intense must be his
longings and recollections who
treasures, deep down in his heart the
sweet delights and pure associations that he has known, but never may

know again. We do not appreciate our blessings until they have passed.
We do not try to gather the sunbeams until the clouds have obscured
them.
How many and many a youth, brave-hearted and true, answers with
eager haste the war call of his native land all heedless of the home he is
leaving, and the loving arms that sheltered him there. But when his
soldier's blood is crimsoning the sands beneath a foreign sky, the
thoughts that go with his ebbing life are of home--all of home.
Who rushes from his home out into the world, blind devotee of
fortune's phantom goddess, to realize a phantom indeed, sits down in
his despondency and his despair, to dream of "dear old home".
Yes, too, and the wretch--so seemingly depraved that nothing beautiful
or pure of soul is left--who flings from him his life in mad suicide, goes
out into that trackless eternity with home upon the lips of death. Then if
the patter of baby's feet, the glad ring of children's voices echo within
the walls of your home, if father and mother; and brothers and sisters
brighten it with the sunshine of love, enjoy it while you may, make it
your heaven, and be not in over-haste to break the ties that bind you
there.
You may never weep, perchance, over a home made desolate by death;
and yet, time--so surely as time is--will make it but only a memory.
And all too late each heart will learn that it did not prize enough the
blessedness of home.
WHY?
Why is it we grasp at the shadow
That flits from us swift as thought,

While the real that maketh the shadow
Stands in our way unsought?

And why do we wonder, and wonder,
What's beyond the hill-tops
of thought?
Why is it the things that we sigh for
Are the things that we never can
reach?
Why, only the sternest experience
A lession of patience can

teach?
And why hold we so careless and lightly
The treasures that
are in our reach?
Why is it we wait for the future,
Or dwell on the scenes of the past,

Rather than live in the present
Hastening from us so fast?
Why is it
the prizes we toil for,
So tempting in fancy's mould cast,
Prove,
when to our lips we have pressed them,
Only dead-sea apples at last?

And why are the crowns, and the crosses,
So wondrous