And doth not a meeting like this?

And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I ’ve been wand’ring away— To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, The snowfall of Time may be stealing—what then? Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, We ’ll wear the gay tinge of Youth’s roses again. What softened remembrances come o’er the heart, In gazing on those we ’ve been lost to so long! The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part, Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng; As letters some hand hath invisibly traced, When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced, The warmth of a moment like this brings to light. And thus, as in memory’s bark we shall glide, To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew, Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide, The wreck of full many a hope shining through;