People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1896 — THE LONG AGO. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE LONG AGO.

HERE IS MUSIC soft in a minor key, Like an echo of silver chimes, As the whispering breeze brings back to me z Sweet songs of the far-away-times — When the orchard

pink, in the month of May, Was gorgeous in delicate bloom, And the droning bees', through the livelong day x Were drinking its richest perfume. •. When the roses bloomed by the cottage door, And the lilacs’ purple spray Peeped in the window, and over the floor, With sunshine and shadow at play; When the fleecy clouds in the afternoon, Childhood’s dreaming would bear awfty Beyond and above, to the crescent moon, Which from heaven had seemed to stray. In that far-away land of memory— In that land of “the long ago”— There are luminous pictures—dear to More real than artists can know. And voices hushed I again can hear,* Which I heard in those by-gone hours, When life was young, nor care, nor fear Was found with the birds and flowers. • ♦ • " • ‘ • • But hapiy again in the great “somewhere” — , « When the vanishing years are past— We may find, in a region pure and fair. Our cherished and loved at last. When our white sails dip on “the other shore” Of that boundless, unknown sea, They will greet us; and we will think no more ( Of those chords in, a minor key. —■4-w—-X--