Along the road the travellers go,
⁠A motley cavalcade;
At midnight, 'midst fast-falling snow,
⁠The march awhile is stayed.

And great and small, and one and all,
⁠Hot youth and lagging age,
They gather waiting round the stone
⁠Which marks another stage.

The journey’s done, the stage is run,
⁠The guide must say farewell.
(Hark! down the wind the travellers deem
⁠They hear a passing-bell.)

A stage behind, when wailed the wind
⁠Across a snowy wold,
They halted, and they halt this night,
⁠Upon a midnight cold,

Till this same guide, who stands beside
⁠The stone, now midnight's near,
Came, muffled — none his face could see,
⁠And none his voice could hear.

If he were glad, if he were sad,
⁠Not one of them could know;
But ever as he went along
⁠His veil he lifted slow.

If he were sad, if he were glad,
⁠If he brought good or ill,
They did not know; but, day by day,
⁠He told his tale; and still,

Some called it sad, some said 'twas glad —
⁠So wondrous was the tale.
Each saw him as none other saw,
⁠Who looked behind his veil.

The stage is run, the tale is done,
⁠The guide must say farewell;
And on the wind there comes the sound,
⁠As of a passing-bell.

Now he must go; the winds wail low
⁠Across the snowy wold;
He takes each traveller by the hand —
⁠His hand is very cold.

Of one and all, both great and small,
⁠How loth soe'er they be,
Whatever’s false of all they have,
⁠He claims it for his fee.

They plead in vain, for, loth or fain,
⁠They thus his fee must pay;
But nothing that was truly theirs
⁠The guide can take away.

And when he goes none ever knows;
⁠Their grasp is strong and warm —
They think they hold him still — but he
⁠Is whirling down the storm.

Ere they can say, "Farewell for aye!"
⁠Far down the storm he's gone.
The new guide stands with muffled face
⁠Beside the halting-stone.

At midnight thus the cavalcade
⁠Is halted on the plain.
When midnight's past, to meet the morn
⁠The march sets forth again.

A dome of blossom rises overhead,
⁠Piled like the snows upon some Alpine height,
And blushing with such tints of pink and red
⁠As summer clouds may wear in vesper light.

Dew-spangled — pierced with sudden shafts of gold
⁠That slide between the latticed boughs below;
A little world of bloom, that seems to fold
⁠Birds, bees, and sunbeams in a tender glow.

Life is so sweet beneath this fairy bower
⁠That the full heart must tremble in its bliss,
And fear lest wanton breeze or hasty shower
⁠Should harm one petal by a careless kiss.

Under the apple-tree I stand alone,
⁠In the strange stillness of an autumn day:
Where have the swallows and the brown bees flown?
⁠What cruel hand hath snatched my blooms away?

The sullen, silver-rifted sky looks down
⁠Between grey branches, — not a golden gleam
Falls on the scanty leaves, grown sere and brown;
⁠And I am haunted by that flowery dream!

O foolish heart I — beside the mossy root
⁠Lie the rich spoils that put thy grief to shame!
He takes the blossom, but He gives the fruit,
⁠That men may magnify His worthy name.

He gives a treasure for a vanished toy,
⁠Filling the soul before its void is known;
A solid blessing for a fragile joy
⁠His hand bestows: — make thou His gifts thine own.

Why do we heap huge mounds of years
⁠Before us and behind,
And scorn the little days that pass
⁠Like angels on the wind?

Each, turning round a small sweet face
⁠As beautiful as near,
Because it is so small a face
⁠We will not see it clear.

And so it turns from us, and goes
⁠Away in sad disdain;
Though we could give our lives for it,
⁠It never comes again.