Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT
139
tDJ* ^battg Cabinet.
Old relic of tlie past!
Sweet memories, from the sunny golden time
Of happy childhood, whose enchanted clime
No shadow overcast;
Come to me, as I press
Lightly, with aged faltering hand once more,
The spring that clasps thy quaintly carven door,
Thy perfumy recess.
Sweet, subtle, strange,
Breathing its charm from nook and silken fold,
The same faint fragrance meets me as of old,
After long years of change;
Shells, from the gleaming sands
And palmy isles, of orient oceans sent;
Grasses, that o’er some lonely river bent
In far-off lands,
Are gathered here, bright birds of plumage rare,
Some withered blossoms, dead, with not a trace
Of their lost bloom, and in thy inmost place
A tress of golden hair.
No alien’s careless hand
Hath rifled thee, old friend ! since one by one,
The old home-faces vanished years agone
Into the angel land.
J. I. L.
8