Long ago, when evening's twilight,
Came vermilion, touched with gold,
Save where nature penciled shadows
Of a lassie, herd and wold,
On the emerald of the meadow,
By a pathway to a fold,
Came a lassie o'er the heather,
Where the sleek kine browse and roam,
Calling of the cattle home.
Then I felt a mystic rapture,
I could never all explain;
Nor the why my heart a tattoo
Sets to throbbing in my brain.
When of nights I watch the embers
Of the yule-log glow and wane,
Through the long and dreary evenings,
While the ghosts of things that were,
O'er the waning embers stir,
There's enchantment full and plenty,
Where the cattle roam and feed,
In my reminiscent fancy,
On the em'rald of the mead;
Where the shimmers of the sunset,
From the sombre woodlands speed,
Fall but brightly on the pathway,
Till it beams a thread of gold,
From the moorland to the fold.
Now, from out the icy claspings,
Of the sepulcher of years,
While the glow of dying embers
On my old hearthstone appears,
Comes an angel through the shadows,
Age encumbers with, and clears
All the clouds from recollections
Of my truant coming home,
With the lassie through the gloam.
But the lassie, heaven bless her,
Went a-calling long ago,
On a cherub up in glory,
Whom she did but scarcely know.
There the angels hold her captive,
Envying her beauty so;
But of evenings when they revel,
And I lapse to revery,
She as often visits me.
Comes with all her mystic beauty,
Budding on her like the rose,
Blowing wild upon the heather,
With a charm of grace that grows
On my mem'ry when I'm waking,
In my vision when I doze,
With her lobate bust a-heaving,
And a scent of lavender,
In the rustic robes of her.
Then we stroll again, fond lovers,
Through the embers waning glow;
Not a crow-foot on her visage,
Nor a shadow on my brow;
Both as charmed, as free, as happy,
Now within the afterglow,
As when first we went a-sparking,
Down the verdant hills of loam
Driving of the cattle home.
Strolling homeward in the gloaming,
'Twix a nap and fancy's flight,
As the time upon the dial
Loiters towards the noon of night,
And the yule-log, gray with ashes,
Smoulders to a leering light,
And the cerfew bells of glory
Call the lassie back from me,
Through the hazy reverie.
Let the yule-log's embers smoulder,
And the angels sportive be,
While I sit in sleepy corner,
Nap and dream, sweetheart, of thee;
Till the rare and brilliant glory
Of the by-gones comes to me,
And we stroll, the happy lovers,
Hearts a-welling with the swells
Of the tinkling cattle bells.
Ah, the subtle, pleasing fiction
That is bundled up in dreams,
Dreams that lead us on and ravish
With their sweet, alluring themes,
Diorames bright and sparkling
Like to beacons over streams,
Or like some mirage, oasis
Of Sahara, oft they come
With their mystic polycrome.