POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2132, 23 December 1880, Page 4

POETRY.

A FOLDED LEAF. 3 (S. E. Panton, in " Chamber's Journal.") A folded page, old, stained and blurred, I found within your book last night, I did uotread the dim dark word I saw in the slow waning light; So put it back, and left it there, As if in truth I did not care. Ah! we have all a folded leaf That in Time's book of long ago We leave ; a half relief Falls on us when we hide it so, We fold it down, then turn away, And who may read that page to-day I Not you, my child ; nor you, my wife, Who sit beside my study chair For all have something in tt eir Ife That they, and they alone, may bear — A trifling lie, a deadly cin, A something bought they did not win. My folded leaf ! how blue eyes gleam And blot the dork brown eyes I see ; And golden curls at evening beam Above the black locks at my knee! Ah me ! that leaf is folded down, And aye for me the locks are brown. And yet I love them who sit by, My best and dearest—dearest now. They may not knew for what I sigh, What brings the shadow on my brow, -Ghosts at the best; so let them be, Nor come between my life and me. They only rise at twilight hour ; So light the lamp, ana close the blind. Small perfume lingers in the flower That sleeps that folded page behind. So let it ever folded lie : 'Twill be unfolded when I die.