Like drifts of balm from cedared glens, those darling memories come, <br />With soft low songs, and dear old tales, familiar to our home. <br />Then breathe again that faint refrain, so tender, sad, and true, <br />My soul turns round with listening eyes unto the harp and you! <br />The fragments of a broken Past are floating down the tide, <br />And she comes gleaming through the dark, my love, my life, my bride! <br />Oh! sit and sing — I know her well, that phantom deadly fair <br />With large surprise, and sudden sighs, and streaming midnight hair! <br />I know her well, for face to face we stood amongst the sheaves, <br />Our voices mingling with a mist of music in the leaves! <br />I know her well, for hand in hand we walked beside the sea, <br />And heard the huddling waters boom beneath this old Figtree. <br />God help the man that goes abroad amongst the windy pines, <br />And wanders, like a gloomy bat, where never morning shines! <br />That steals about amidst the rout of broken stones and graves, <br />When round the cliffs the merry skiffs go scudding through the waves; <br />When, down the bay, the children play, and scamper on the sand, <br />And Life and Mirth illume the Earth, and Beauty fills the Land! <br />God help the man! He only hears and fears the sleepless cries <br />Of smitten Love — of homeless Love and moaning Memories. <br />Oh! when a rhyme of olden time is sung by one so dear, <br />I feel again the sweetest pain I’ve known for many a year; <br />And from a deep, dull sea of sleep faint fancies come to me, <br />And I forget how lone we sit beneath this old Figtree.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/under-the-figtree/
