Ah, ye lost voices that never come back again,
Where do ye wander in tender and weary pain?
Voices of gladness that welcomed the morning sun
When Life was a temple that Time had just begun,
The shout of a freedom that knew not a care
When joys of the heart were resounding everywhere!
Voices of childhood that prattled untaught by fears,
That stifle the heart in the sorrow of tears,
Where are ye now? In the echoes of mournful tone
Tolling with dreary care life and its solemn moan;
Or lingering in chords that were lost in a song,
Struggling in vain the sweetness of life to prolong!
The lost tones of voices that welcomed us day by day,
Till the truants from heart we left them on the way
Forgotten and lost forever in worldly strife,
Sad, sad and pitiful, gone from our future life!
How silent and cold the empty and vacant heart,
Where voices were lost, that wander in pain apart!
And ye of the greetings gentle and changeless in love,
In brightness of sunshine free as the sky above,
In stillness of twilight whispering soft and low,
Pathetic and tender, in sighs that true lovers know;
Dearer and still dearer grown in love's winsome spell,
Compassionate, watchful, and true, when shadows fell!
Where are thy sunshines? Lost in the flow of Time's tide;
Thy twilights are hushed, Love is no longer the guide!
Though the heart calls aloud, its pathos is lost in a sigh,
For we stretch forth our hands when the shadows are nigh,
Reaching for love-tones in the whispering past,
Where our hearts resurrect but the phantoms at last!
Ah, ye lost voices, will ye never again come back?
Will ye wander forever lost in a weary track?
In the peace that will be in the higher world of love,
Will ye linger in souls blessed in the realms above?
In a glory arrayed, will ye welcome us there,
Where shadows are lost that follow us everywhere?
