Hopes And Memories

OUR hopes in youth are like those roseate shadows
Cast by the sunlight on the dewy grass
When first the fair morn opes her sapphire eyes;
They seem gigantic and yet graceful shades,
Touched with bright color. As our sun of life
Rises towards meridian, less and less
Grow the bright tremulous shadows, till at last,
In the hot dust and noontide of our day,
They glimmer to blank nothingness. Again,
That grand climacteric passed, the shadows gleam
Bright still, perchance (if our past deeds be pure),--
Bright still, but all reversed! Eastward they point,
Lengthening and lengthening ever toward the dawn;
For hopes have then grown memories, whose strange life
Deepens and deepens as the sunset dies.