Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
Birds of PassageFlight the Third. The Meeting
A
At last we meet again:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
And but few of us linger now,
Like the Prophet’s two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.
In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!
And many a Happy New Year;
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here.
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.