The Poems of John Rollin Ridge
by Jeff Ward

Originally Published by Henry Payot & Company, Publishers.

The Still Small Voice

ALAS, how every thing will borrow
Hues, tones, and bitterness from sorrow!
If evening comes with softened ray
To close the eye of dying day;
If morning ushers in the morrow
With dew-drops sprinkled on its way,
'Tis all the same; a voice is whispering from the Past—
"Too late! too late! the doom is set, the die is cast!"

If through the woods my footsteps roam,
Where always they do feel at home,
And wandering leisurely I trace
Each streamlet to its rising place,
To hear its music, see its foam,
No tide of sound, no shape of grace
Can hush that solemn voice, that whispering from the Past—
"Too late I too late! the doom is set, the die is cast!"

If o'er some well-loved page I bend
In converse deep as with a friend
Whose kindly tones I love to hear,
That lowly sound will reach. my ear,
And sadly with my feelings blend
As sigh with sigh and tear with tear!
The mighty thoughts I read all fade before the Past,
Which cries "too late! the doom is set, the die is cast!"

Oh, never hushed that voice will be!
As sadly as the mournful sea,
Where savage silent shores it laves,
And darkness dwells upon its waves,
Do sound its low-breathed tones to me!
The peace my bosom often craves,
Will linger but a moment's space—it flies the Past,
Whose voice yet cries "the doom is set, the die is cast!"

A raven-thought is darkly set
Upon my brow—where shades are met
Of grief, of pain, of toil, and care—
The raven-thought of stern despair!
Oh, wherefore are my eyelids wet,
While birds make music on the air?
No ear but mine can catch the breathings of the Past,
"Too late! too late I the doom is set, the die is cast!"

Adieu, sweet scenes of other days;
Ye sleep within the past, like rays
Of moonlight on a silent lake.
'Tis not within my power to wake
Your slumbers with these feeble lays;
I can but feel my bosom quake
To hear the low but awful fiat of the Past—
"Too late! too late! the doom is set, the die is cast!

The Poems of John Rollin Ridge by Jeff Ward

Originally Published by Henry Payot & Company, Publishers.

The Still Small Voice

The Poems of John Rollin Ridge
by Jeff Ward