Staunton Spectator, And General Advertiser

POETRY.

"I sat an hour to-day, John;
Beside the old brook stream:
Where we were school-boys in old time,
When manhood was a dream;
The brook is choked with fallen leaves,
The pond is dried away,
I scarce believe that you would know
The dear old place to-day.

"The school house is no more, John,
Beneath our locust trees;
The wild rose by the window side,
No more waves in the breeze;
The scattered tunes look desolate,
The sod they rested on
Has been ploughed up by stranger hands,
Since you and I were gone.

"The chestnut tree is dead, John,
And what is sadder, now,
The broken grape-vine of our swing
Hangs on the withered bough;
I read our names upon the bark,
And found the pebbles rare—
Laid up beneath the hollow side,
Just as we piled them there.

"Beneath the grass-grown bank, John,
I looked for our old spring,
That bubbled down the alder path,
Three paces from the swing;
The rushes grow upon the brink,
The pool is black and bare,
And not a foot, this many a day,
It seems has trodden there.

"I took the old blind road, John,
That wandered up the hill,
'Tis darker than it used to be,
And seems so lone and still;
The birds sing yet among the boughs
Where once the sweet grapes hung,
But not a voice of human kind,
Where all our voices rung.

"I sat me on the fence, John,
That lies as in old time,
The same half panel in the path,
We used so oft to climb;
I thought how o'er the bars of life,
Our playmates had passed on,
And left me counting on this spot,
The faces that are gone."