Ella Wheeler Wilcox

And They Are Dumb

   I have been across the bridges of the years.
         Wet with tears
   Were the ties on which I trod, going back
         Down the track
   To the valley where I left, ’neath skies of Truth,
         My lost youth.

   As I went, I dropped my burdens, one and all—
         Let them fall;
   All my sorrows, all my wrinkles, all my care,
         My white hair,
   I laid down, like some lone pilgrim’s heavy pack,
         By the track.

   As I neared the happy valley with light feet,
         My heart beat
   To the rhythm of a song I used to know
         Long ago,
   And my spirits gushed and bubbled like a fountain
         Down a mountain.

   On the border of that valley I found you,
         Tried and true;
   And we wandered through the golden Summer-Land
         Hand in hand.
   And my pulses beat with rapture in the blisses
         Of your kisses.

   And we met there, in those green and verdant places,
         Smiling faces,
   And sweet laughter echoed upward from the dells
         Like gold bells.
   And the world was spilling over with the glory
         Of Youth’s story.

   It was but a dreamer’s journey of the brain;
         And again
   I have left the happy valley far behind;
         And I find
   Time stands waiting with his burdens in a pack
         For my back.

   As he speeds me, like a rough, well-meaning friend,
         To the end,
   Will I find again the lost ones loved so well?
         Who can tell!
   But the dead know what the life will be to come—
         And they are dumb!