Past and Present

Past midnight! Vastly overhead
A wash of stars--the town’s asleep!
And through the pine trees of the dead
The rising winds of morning creep.

Dim, mid the hillside’s shadow grass
I count the marble slabs. How vain
My throbbing life that waits to pass
Into the great world on the train!

The city’s vision fades from mind.
I only see the hill and sky;
And on the mist that rides the wind
A tottering pageant meets my eye.

The cock crows faintly, far away;
A troop of age and grief appears.
Ye shadows of a distant day.
What do ye, pioneers?

There shines the engine’s comet light.
Ye shadows of a century set,
Haste to the hillside and the night--
I am not of you yet!