The Argosy — page 339: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

320 Across the Plains. There was a sudden start, a quick gaze and a gasp, and Flossiés ‘ Mother! Mother, it is David !” 7% And then there rose another voice with a hungry sob breaking cinta] it, and the dear mother was on my neck, and all of us were sobbing ~ together. | And I showed them the bag of gold I had brought ; which meant comfort and peace for mother in her old age, and pretty gowns for Flossie ; and told them not to mind though I had come back a brown, rough-looking, weather-beaten chap: and oh, what thanksgiving went up to God from our hearts that night! I am an elderly man now. But I keep by me yet one of those old lamp reflectors: as a solemn memento of that awful journey across the plains. LOOKING BACK. THE cypress with the myrtle twines ; | I hear, where minstrel birds rejoice, the The sweet grows bitter at the core ; sweeter music of his voice ! The summer sun no longer shines Where hedgerows tall on either side In cloudless splendour as of yore ; Festoon with flowers the leafy lane ; The shadows mingle with the light ; the Wh P day wears onward to the night. We. glancing rays oO glory glide, € saunter, arm in arm, again ; My heart is wedded to regret; Or, stretched beneath some spreading I sing the songs of other years ; tree, he reads the rare romance to me. My fairest page of life is wet With sorrowful, despairing tears ; | Such dreams must vanish in an hour ; I mourn the dear departed days, the ‘light The voice falls fainter on my ear ; and love in all my ways. The petals flutter from the flower ; The fleeting visions disappear ; Through golden vistas looking back, One hour let me review the scene ; Let brief, bright sunshine gild the track The fire burns down to ashes grey; the weary night succeeds the day. . Of dark and barren days between ; Ah! when I walk in starless ways, One hour let me forget my pain, and live When tempests toss my shuddering in lost delight again ! » bark, Say, will the friend of former days | Reach hands of comfort through the dark? Alas! no light illumes the gloom: no The dream of bliss dispels my gloom : Again we tread the pathway wide That winds through fields of waving |- bloom And curves along the river-side ; voice makes answer from the tomb ! The lark soars singing out of view to | He may not whisper to my heart summer skies of sapphire blue! Those words of love I sadly miss : And wander in my happy dream In happy eyes that weep for bliss : Where branches trail’ above the brook Alas | the tears of anguis dim the eyes To glass their blossoms in the stream ; that weep in vain for him ! Gomicboo s.c€om