OH, the hidden leaves of life, Closely folded in the heart! Leaves where Memory's golden finger, Slowly pointing, loves to linger; Leaves that bid the old tears start. Leaves where Hope would read the future, Sibylline, and charged with fate: Leaves which calm Submission closeth, While her tearless eye reposeth On the legend, "Trust, and wait!" Leaves which grave Experience ponders, Soundings for her pilot-charts; Leaves which God Himself is storing, Records which we read, adoring Him who writes on human hearts. All our own, our treasured secrets, Indestructible archives! None can copy, none can steal them, Death itself shall not reveal them, Sacred manuscripts of lives. Some are filled with fairy pictures, Half imagined and half seen; Radiant faces, fretted towers, Sunset colors, starry flowers, Wondrous arabesques between. Some are traced with liquid sunbeams, Some with fire, and some with tears; Some with crimson dyes are glowing, From a smitten life-rock flowing Through the wilderness of years. Some are crossed with later writing, Palimpsests of earliest days; Old remembrance faintly gleaming Through the thinking and the dreaming, Outlines dim in noontide haze. One lies open, all unwritten, To the glance of careless sight; Yet it bears a shining story, Traced in phosphorescent glory, Only legible by night. One is dark with hieroglyphics Of some dynasty of grief: Only God, and just one other, Dearest friend, or truest brother, Ever read that hidden leaf. Many a leaf is undeciphered, Writ in languages unknown; O'er the strange inscription bending (Every clue in darkness ending), Finding no "Rosetta Stone," Still we study, always failing! God can read it, we must wait; Wait, until He teach the mystery, Then the wisdom-woven history Faith shall read, and Love translate. Leaflets now unpaged and scattered Time's great library receives; When eternity shall bind them, Golden volumes we shall find them, God's light falling on the leaves. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INVOCATION [TO LOVE] by WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN HOPEFULLY WAITING by ANSON DAVIES FITZ RANDOLPH FOR 'OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS' (BY LEONARDO DA VINCI) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI EVENING by ISABELLA LOCKHART ALDERMAN THE BOTTOM DRAWER by AMELIA EDITH HUDDLESTON BARR THE WOUNDED HARE by ROBERT BURNS SPRING FANTASIES: 4. HORN AND VIOLIN by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE 'NAME UNKNOWN' (IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK) by THOMAS CAMPBELL |