Complete Poetical Works

"TWENTY YEARS"

     Beg your pardon, old fellow!  I think
     I was dreaming just now when you spoke.
     The fact is, the musical clink
     Of the ice on your wine-goblet's brink
     A chord of my memory woke.

     And I stood in the pasture-field where
     Twenty summers ago I had stood;
     And I heard in that sound, I declare,
     The clinking of bells in the air,
     Of the cows coming home from the wood.

     Then the apple-bloom shook on the hill;
     And the mullein-stalks tilted each lance;
     And the sun behind Rapalye's mill
     Was my uttermost West, and could thrill
     Like some fanciful land of romance.

     Then my friend was a hero, and then
     My girl was an angel.  In fine,
     I drank buttermilk; for at ten
     Faith asks less to aid her than when
     At thirty we doubt over wine.

     Ah, well, it DOES seem that I must
     Have been dreaming just now when you spoke,
     Or lost, very like, in the dust
     Of the years that slow fashioned the crust
     On that bottle whose seal you last broke.

     Twenty years was its age, did you say?
     Twenty years?  Ah, my friend, it is true!
     All the dreams that have flown since that day,
     All the hopes in that time passed away,
     Old friend, I've been drinking with you!