There are phantoms of sunshiny hours
That fled when the summer time fled,
And specters that mock while they haunt us,
Long buried, but never dead.

And ever and ever an hour
Will come that the heart-wraiths control,
Till down from Eternity's tower
A banshee shall ring for the soul.




ONLY A TRAMP.

Only a tramp by the roadside dead,
Only a tramp--who cares?
His feet are bare, his dull eyes stare,
And the wind plays freaks with his unkempt hair.
The sun rose up and the sun went down,
But nobody missed him from the town
Where he begged for bread 'till the day he was dead.
He's only a tramp--who cares?
Only a tramp, a nuisance gone.
One more tramp less--who cares?

Ghastly and gray, in the lane all day,
A soiled, dead heap of human clay.
Would the wasted crumbs in the rich man's hall,
Where the gas-lights gleam and the curtains fall,