In Yarrow Poem by Alexander Anderson

A dream of youth has grown to fruit,
Though years it was in blossom;
It lay, like touch of summer light,
Far down within my bosom:
It led me on from hope to hope,
Made rainbows of each morrow,
And now my heart has had its wish—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.


And as I stood, my old sweet dreams
Look back their long-lost brightness;
My boyhood came, and in my heart
Rose up a summer lightness.
I heard faint echoes of far song
Grow rich and deep, and borrow
The low, sweet tones of early years—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.


O, dreams of youth, dreamed long ago,
When every hour was pleasure!
O, hopes that came when Hope was high,
Nor ****rd of her treasure!—
Ye came to-day, and, as of old,
I could not find your marrow;
Ye made my heart grow warm with tears—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.


That touch of sorrow when our youth
Was in its phase of sadness,
For which no speech was on the lip
To frame its gentle madness,
Rests on each hill I saw to-day,
Till I was left with only
That pleasure which is almost pain,
The sense of being lonely.


The haunting sense of love, that now
Beats with a feebler pinion
Above the shattered domes that once
Soared high in his dominion,
And in the air of all that time,
Nor joy nor sadness wholly,
Seem all to mix and melt away
In pleasing melancholy.


Why should it be that, as we dream,
A tender song of passion,
Of lovers loving long ago
In the old Border fashion,
Should touch and hallow every spot,
Until its presence thorough
Is in the very grass that throbs
With thoughts of love and Yarrow?


We know not; we can only deem
The heart lives in the story,
And gives to stream and hill around
A lover's tearful glory,
Until it bears us back to feel
The light of that far morrow
That touched the ridge on Tinnis hill,
Then fell on winding Yarrow.


Ah, not on Yarrow stream alone
Fell that most tender feeling,
But like a light from out a light,
An inmost charm revealing,
It lay, and lies on vale and hill,
On waters in their flowing;
And only can the heart discern
The source of its bestowing.


Yes! we may walk by Yarrow stream
With speech, and song, and laughter,
But still far down a sadness sleeps,
To wake and follow after.
And soft regrets that come and go,
The light and shade of sorrow,
Are with me still, that I may know
I stood to-day in Yarrow.