When Days Grow Dark - A poem by Ellen P. Allerton

When Days Grow Dark.

The world grows dim, so far I see your face,
Your dear, kind face, so often bent on me
In tender pity, and I fondly trace
The well known features while I yet can see,
Ere fades such twilight as is left me yet,
Lest ia the coming darkness I forget.

Forget! Oh, no, not that! Although I may
Forget the roundness of the robin's breast,
The spreading crimson of the new born day,
Or sunset gold upon the mountain's crest,
Your face shall clinging memory hold fast
And never older than I see it last.

I read no more: above the tempting book
Gathers a mist impalpable and pale,
Baffling, relentless; wheresoe'er I look,
The page is hidden by a filmy veil.
Alas! I cry with slow and bitter tears,
Must it be thus through all the coming years?

You take the book and pour into my ear
In accents sweet the words I cannot see;
I listen, charmed, forget my haunting fear
And think with you as with your eyes I see.
In the world's thought, so your dear voice be left,
I still have part, I am not all bereft.

And if this darkness deepens, when for me
The new moon bends no more her silver rim,
When stars go out and over land and sea
Black midnight falls where now is twilight dim,
Oh, then may I be patient, sweet and mild,
While your hand leads me like a little child.

^__Ellen P. Allerton.