A Portrait In the Attic

I can open this black foot-trunk, Look, this is the key! I found a few old letters Which I kept to comfort me. Yes, that pocket-watch is quaint and ancient; But I left it there with the ring, And took that tiny Portrait Which hangs by a crimson string. I have never opened that foot-trunk Since, many long years ago; I left it there in solitude To store things I used to know, But I came back to see the Portrait: I wonder if I can trace A look of that smiling person Left now as a faded face? It was like me once; but I remember The weary, relentless years, And life, with its fierce brief tempests And its long, long rain of tears. Is it strange to call it my Portrait? I now smile, for well I may To think of what I was And of what I am today. How that young heart would have pitied Me now - if his dreams had shown A quiet and weary man I am With all his illusions flown. It is strange; but life's currents drift us So surely and swiftly on, That we scarcely notice the changes And how many things have gone! And forget, while today absorbs us, How old mysteries are unsealed; How the old, old ties are loosened, And the old, old wounds are healed. And we say that our life is fleeting Like a story that time has told; But we fancy that we - we only - Are just what we were of old. So now and then, it is wisdom To gaze, as I do today, At that half-forgotten relic Of a time that has passed away. The very look of that Portrait, The memories that seem to cling To those fragile and faded letters And the pocket-watch and the ring. If they only stirred in my spirit Forgotten pleasure and pain, - Why, memory is often bitter, And almost always in vain. But the contrast of bygone hours Comes to tear a veil away - And I marvel to see the stranger Who is living in me today!