DON'T you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, -- Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown, Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, And trembled with fear at your frown? In the old church-yard in the valley, Ben Bolt, In a corner obscure and alone, They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray, And Alice lies under the stone. Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt, Which stood at the foot of the hill, Together we've lain in the noonday shade, And listened to Appleton's mill. The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt, The rafters have tumbled in, And a quiet which crawls round the walls as you gaze Has followed the olden din. Do you mind of the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, At the edge of the bathless wood, And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, Which nigh by the doorstep stood? The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, The tree you would seek for in vain; And where once the lords of the forest waved Are grass and the golden grain. And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, With the master so cruel and grim, And the shaded nook in the running brook Where the children went to swim? Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, The spring of the brook is dry, And of all the boys who were schoolmates then There are only you and I. There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt, They have changed from the old to the new; But I feel in the deeps of my spirit the truth, There never was change in you. Twelvemonths twenty have past, Ben Bolt, Since first we were friends -- yet I hail Your presence a blessing, your friendship a truth, Ben Bolt of the salt-sea gale. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG OF THE STYGIAN NAIADES by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SHELTERED GARDEN by HILDA DOOLITTLE THE SEEDLING by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR VERLAINE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON PROMETHEUS UNBOUND; A LYRICAL DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY SINCERE FLATTERY OF R.B. by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN |