The After-Echo

How long the echoes love to play
  Around the shore of silence, as a wave
  Retreating circles down the sand!
  One after one, with sweet delay,
The mellow sounds that cliff and island gave,
  Have lingered in the crescent bay,
  Until, by lightest breezes fanned,
They float far off beyond the dying day
  And leave it still as death.
  But hark,—
  Another singing breath
  Comes from the edge of dark;
  A note as clear and slow
  As falls from some enchanted bell,
  Or spirit, passing from the world below,
  That whispers back, Farewell.
  So in the heart,
When, fading slowly down the past,
  Fond memories depart,
And each that leaves it seems the last;
Long after all the rest are flown,
Returns a solitary tone,—
The after-echo of departed years,—
And touches all the soul to tears.