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MUSINGS, by                    
First Line: Floating softly down from cloudland
Last Line: Silv'ry as the snows tonight.
Subject(s): Friendship


Floating softly down from cloudland,
Veiling o'er the azure blue,
Robing all the earth in shadows,
Hiding everything from view.
In the twilight, in the gloaming,
Like the spirits of the night,
Bringing darkness with their brightness,
Fell the flakes of gleaming white.

One pale, vestal star had glittered
Faintly through the twilight grey,
But its silv'ry beams had vanished
With the shrouded death of day;
Said my heart: "The days are dreary
And the earth is filled with woe;
Every friend has vanished—vanished,
Like a landscape in the snow."

And my gaze, by teardrops blinded,
Turned from winter's cold and gloom,
Met a brighter, fairer picture
As the firelight lit the room;
While beside me, warm and glowing,
Sweet as by-gone summer hours,
Stood a gift from friendship's fingers—
Softly tinted, fragrant flowers.

Smilax sprays, some pale, sweet roses,
Feathery ferns and pinks as white
As the spotless fragments drifted
On the sleeping face of Night;
Vaguely chimed their silv'ry voices;
There's no friendship but the true;
And rememb'rance, Friendship's echo,
Seeks this guise to speak to you.

And to say: "Like flowers of summer
Blooming near us unawares,
Thus does joy bloom on our pathway,
E'en when life seems dark with cares;
Friendship true can never perish,
Though our faith may pass away,
As a fragrance haunts the senses
Though the roses may decay.

Friendship is not like a snowflake,
But as constant and as true
As its want that springs within us—
As the violet's eyes are blue;
Shame it not by doubts and questions—
If it lives, it lives for aye."
Softly, strangely had the voices
Melted with the dying day.

Long I sat there in the firelight
As the room it dimly lit,
Till upon the air before me
Three young faces seemed to flit—
May their friendship blossom for me
As their flowers, fresh and bright,
E'en when age has turned our tresses
Silv'ry as the snows tonight.





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