"Vanitas vanitatum" has rung in the ears

And this was your Cradle? Why, surely, my Jenny, Such cozy dimensions go clearly to show You were an exceedingly small pickaninny, Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago.

What an arm—what a waist For an arm!

Lightly I sped when hope was high And youth beguiled the chase,— I follow, follow still: But I Shall never see her face.

The world's as ugly, ay, as Sin,— And almost as delightful.

I look'd far back into the past, and lo! in bright array, I saw, as in a dream, the forms of ages pass'd away. It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep falls.

On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate... As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do …