* * * * *
"Why, memory, cling thus to life's jocund morning?
Why point to its treasures exhausted too soon?
Or tell that the buds of the heart at the dawning,
Were destined to wither and perish at noon?
"On the past sadly musing, oh pause not a moment;
Could we live o'er again but one bright sunny day;
'Twere better than ages of present enjoyment,
In the memory of scenes that have long passed away.
"But time ne'er retraces the footsteps he measures;
In fancy alone with the past we can dwell;
Then take my last blessing, loved scene of young pleasures;
Dear home of my childhood--forever farewell!"
CHIEF JUSTICE GIBSON.
The bereavements of home fill up the urn of memory with its most hallowed
treasures. Though these memories of the household have an alloy of sorrow
and are the product of its adversities, yet there is no pleasure so
delicate, so pure, so painful, so much longed after, as that which they
afford. They bring to our hearts the purest essence of the past, and cause
us to live it over again. They come over us like the "breath of the sweet
south breathing over a bed of violets." When we revert to the happy scenes
of our childhood, we live amid them in spirit again, and remembrance swells
with many a proof of recollected love; sweet ideals of all that lived under
the parental roof spring up within us, and pass before us in visions of
delight; the home of the past becomes the home of the present.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327