Oh, the summer time is beautiful, with all its sunny sky,
The soft sweet carol of the birds and streams that wander by;
But know you this, however fair, and bright, and good it be,
I would rather have the winter, when the dead can come to me.
I know I love the meadows, with their long sweet wealth of bloom,
And all the timid wilding flowers that find a quiet room
Within the woods, whose shadows sleep as still as aught can be;
But yet give me the winter, when the dead can come to me.
Let the fire sink into ashes as the shadows of the night
Creep upon the darken'd hearthstone in a sweet and solemn flight;
Let me bow as if in slumber, and with busy heart and brain
Try with Promethean power to start the dead to life again.
O, my heart was as a temple, where upon each incensed shrine
I had placed with all a miser's love the statues that were mine;
And I, their faithful pilgrim, paid my vows unto each one
With a more than Hindoo fervour to the cold and senseless stone.
All was gladness in this temple, as it is with those above,
And the light that I had in it was the sunshine of their love;
But death, who will not, cannot, see one mortal free from care,
Came and shook to dust and ruins all the idols I had there.
Yet within the wavy twilight, in its deepest, wisest hour,
I can act the sage magician, and can curb the churchyard's pow'r;
I can draw from out its chambers all the forms that slumber there,
Till they fill the open doorway and the dim and trembling air.
And they come and flit around me, and they sit beside my knee,
And they whisper words whose meaning none can ever know but me;
And so sad and sweet their language, and so faint and low they speak,
That I feel my bosom beating and the tears upon my cheek.
Then my heart fills up with longings as I whisper 'Come once more,
And let each one take his chamber in my bosom as before;
Open up its rusted gateway, and from out each dusty nook
Cheer away the gloomy silence with the sunshine of your look.
O, the days are long and weary when I hear no more thy voice,
And the earth looks not the same to me, and I no more rejoice;
Come, that I may feel again the warmth of all thy vanish'd light;'
And I raise my hands to clasp them, but they vanish from my sight.
Yet they leave behind them counsels that should steer my spirit free
From the rocks of ill as beacons guide the mariners at sea—
Solemn counsels wisely given it were well for me to prize,
Since they point a better haven in the calm of Paradise.
Yes, the summer time is beautiful with all its clouds above,
But it brings not in the twilight all the visions that I love;
Therefore is it that I weary all the time until I see
On the hills the coming winter that will bring them back to me.