Songs from the Mountains (1880). Names Upon a Stone
(Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.) Across bleak widths of broken sea A fierce north-easter breaks, And makes a thunder on the lea— A whiteness of the lakes. Here, while beyond the rainy stream The wild winds sobbing blow, I see the river of my dream Four wasted years ago. Narrara of the waterfalls, The darling of the hills, Whose home is under mountain walls By many-luted rills! Her bright green nooks and channels cool I never more may see; But, ah! the Past was beautiful— The sights that used to be. There was a rock-pool in a glen Beyond Narrara's sands; The mountains shut it in from men In flowerful fairy lands; But once we found its dwelling-place— The lovely and the lone— And, in a dream, I stooped to trace Our names upon a stone. Above us, where the star-like moss Shone on the wet, green wall That spanned the straitened stream across, We saw the waterfall— A silver singer far away, By folded hills and hoar; Its voice is in the woods to-day— A voice I hear no more. I wonder if the leaves that screen The rock-pool of the past Are yet as soft and cool and green As when we saw them last! I wonder if that tender thing, The moss, has overgrown The letters by the limpid spring— Our names upon the stone! Across the face of scenes we know There may have come a change— The places seen four years ago Perhaps would now look strange. To you, indeed, they cannot be What haply once they were: A friend beloved by you and me No more will greet us there. Because I know the filial grief That shrinks beneath the touch— The noble love whose words are brief— I will not say too much; But often when the night-winds strike Across the sighing rills, I think of him whose life was like The rock-pool's in the hills. A beauty like the light of song Is in my dreams, that show The grand old man who lived so long As spotless as the snow. A fitting garland for the dead I cannot compass yet; But many things he did and said I never will forget. In dells where once we used to rove The slow, sad water grieves; And ever comes from glimmering grove The liturgy of leaves. But time and toil have marked my face, My heart has older grown Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace Our names upon the stone.
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
