REALISATION (At the Old Homestead)

I tread the paths of earlier times / Where all my steps were set to rhymes.

I gaze on scenes I used to see / When dreaming of a vague To be.

I walk in ways made bright of old / By hopes youth-limned in hues of gold.

But lo! those hopes of future bliss / Seem dull beside the joy that _is_.

My noonday skies are far more bright / Than those dreamed of in morning's light,

And life gives me more joys to hold / Than all it promised me of old.