"Dreams of the Past"

"Dreams of the Past"

I am thinking yet, with a fond regret,

      Of an eve in the long dead past;

Of a sunset sky—a stream flowing by—

      A happiness too great to last—

When my young heart beat to the music sweet

      Of a voice that I loved too well;

And the passionate bliss of that first sweet kiss

      Was too holy for lips to tell.

Ten years have flown since we sat there alone

      In our hearts’ sweet summer time;

But I’ll never forget, or cease to regret,

      Those days of rapture sublime.

And so, to-night, in the soft twilight,

      Tho’ a truer love is mine—

I weep on the breast where my head sinks to rest,

      And wish again it were thine.

"Dreams of the Past" printed in what is probably The Portland Telegram in either 1875 or 1876. Ella Higginson identified this piece in the margin as her first published poem, written when she was fourteen under the pseudonym Elaine, clipping courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.