the past

The Truth About Yourself

/ James Browning

Psy“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” is the 4th step used in anonymous recovery groups for compulsions that range from alcohol, narcotics and gambling to overeating, workaholic behavior and the recovery group I am active in, Codependence Anonymous.

The first time I encountered the words “searching and fearless moral inventory” they spooked me (more than that… they scared the crap out of me!). The fear was of the unknown for so much of my past behavior was buried so deep within me I was not even sure what all was there. I felt deeply ashamed, but was uncertain exactly why.

The majority of people never get involved in a 12 step recovery group, but EVERYONE could benefit from doing a 4th step (Inventory) and the following 5th step that boils down to Admitted …the exact nature of our wrongs.

Going through the inventory and admission process then beginning to let go of the regret we poison our self with is one of the best self-care efforts that can be made. Yet, most don’t do it for the very reason I didn’t for decades: fear and not wanting to face the truth. My personal experience was I had previously made a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, inventory and admission was difficult for me but far, far easier than I had imagined. The good I got from the process was and continues to be life changing.

Many newcomers to the Steps feel dismayed when they first see this (5th) Step. It’s bad enough, they think, that the 4th Step requires them to beat themselves up for all the bad things they’ve done . . . but now the 5th Step says they must shame themselves before someone else so he can beat them up, too! How can I do that? they ask. What purpose could such torture possibly serve?

Such doubt and dismay are understandable, even reasonable, given such mistaken ideas about the nature of the Steps. It’s important to understand that the 5th Step is not about wallowing in guilt and shame over our past behavior. Instead, it is a practical and effective means of reconciling ourselves with the past and finally putting guilt and shame behind us where it belongs. It’s also a critical step toward restoring our battered sense of honor and self-respect.

We will never really be at peace with ourselves until we are completely, whole-heartedly okay with who we are-and that includes being okay with who we were and what we have done in the past.

Only by revealing who we really are can we become the same person on the outside as we are on the inside. http://serenityweb.com/?page_id=70

From my vantage point there are two ways of getting to the process outlined in the 4th and 5th step of recovery: 1) great need and courage or 2) great pain that allows us to do nothing else. Most people, including me, take the plunge for the second reason that is outlined well in the quote “When the pain to stay the same exceeds the pain to change, we change”.

Today I think of each of the 12 steps kind of like having a cavity in a tooth filled. Until I do, what is wrong with me will continue to get worse and worse, hurting more and more as time goes on. While getting a filling is not my idea of fun, it’s not that bad either. Same is true for the steps. Not painless, but far less so than I originally though. Getting to feel better about life and myself makes it worthwhile just like a trip to the dentist is.

My gratitude today is for all the goodness and positive growth that has come my way since getting into Codependence Anonymous ( http://coda.org/ ) six years ago. Saying it has been “life changing” is vastly inadequate to describe the personal renaissance and growth that has come. To CoDA and my brothers and sisters in recovery I say thank you with a humble mind and grateful heart.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf

Pay Attention In Class

/ James Browning

3005147-poster-1960-caught-stress-spiral-innovate-your-day-8-minutes-ready-set-pauseYou can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
…is to press play.
From “Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Clearly I recall being in fourth grade dreading the possibility of being in Miss Pittman’s fifth grade class the following year. She was said to be mean, quick tempered and fast to punish students. Knowing she was going to my teacher the next year set me to start playing the anxiety game a half year early.

Actually there were lots of variables that never occurred to a ten year-old boy. The teacher might retire; she might be replaced; she might change jobs; she might start teaching a different grade or maybe she was different that student gossip portrayed. But no other possibility occurred to me except I was going to be in Miss Pittman’s class and she was going to be mean to me. Looking back I can see how my fear seemed to give the future clarity because I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Today I realize taking my fears with a ‘grain of salt’ is always prudent. If the dismal scenarios I frequently think up actually came true it would mean I could predict the future, which of course I can’t (otherwise I would have already won the lottery many times!).

People were always getting ready for tomorrow.
I didn’t believe in that.
Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them.
It didn’t even know they were there.
From “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

I ended up in Miss Pittman’s class just like I dreaded I would, but my experience was NOT what I thought it would be. She was stern and allowed no cutting up in class, but she was a good teacher. Her tendency was to favor the “good students”, which I was one of. Consequently, I ended up doing well, learned a lot and still have respect her to this day. She encouraged my love of reading and the sciences; both of which are very much alive even today. Having Miss Pittman as a 5th grade teacher is one of my earliest lessons about my proven inability to predict the future.

I still try to play fortune teller at times, but the future so rarely turns out the way I predict you’d think I would have completely learned better by now. What is different these days is usually I catch my “future tripping” early on before it ‘snowballs’. I am grateful for insights learned the hard way that improve my life. All I have to do is “pay attention in class”.

It’s being here now that’s important.
There’s no past and there’s no future.
Time is a very misleading thing.
All there is ever, is the now.
We can gain experience from the past,
but we can’t relive it;
and we can hope for the future,
but we don’t know if there is one.
George Harrison

Deep-Burning and Unquenchable

/ James Browning

GriderEngagement005Many events of my life, both good and bad, have faded over time. There are exceptions such as the emotions of a particular time twenty-five years ago that have remained vividly alive. Emotionally it felt like being stretched and pulled apart between two horses. I’ve carried the self-inflicted wound, inside and unseen, long enough. Telling buried secrets stop them from poisoning the soul, so here goes…

My Father left my Mother, Brother and I shortly after my 7th birthday for another woman who was pregnant with his child. The devastation and bewilderment caused me to make a little boy promise to myself: someday if I had children I would never leave them like my Father left me.

Fast forward to 1987; I’m 35, have been married twelve years and have a beautiful young son who is five years old. A restless feeling about the marriage won’t leave me alone and slowly is getting worse. The birth of my boy soothed that away for a time, but by his fifth year feeling I wanted more had returned. The Mother of my son is a caring and good person who I learned a lot about the love of family from. I will always be grateful to her and her parents who accepted me openly and gave me a sense of belonging never experienced before. There was a problem though, I was no longer “in love” with her by the mid 80s when she unexpectedly became pregnant.

The first amends necessary is to B., my first wife. I should have been a man, stood strong and expressed my feelings. The high road would have been to do what was necessary to save the marriage or move on. But I didn’t. Until a few years ago I always put the reason for my weakness and lack of action on my childhood promise to never desert a child of mine. I know even today that was a good portion of my motivation then (or lack of it), but nowhere near the complete explanation.

In my desire not to hurt anyone, I have done nothing far too often. Saying goodbye to a lover has always been very, very difficult for me. Crippled by inaction I accomplished the opposite of my intentions repeatedly in romantic love relationships. I left a path of hurt and pain, not the least of which was to me.

There is no further explanation needed to explain I was ripe to fall in love with another woman in 1987. I met her on a business trip and she was so many things women I had been romantically involved with before were not. Including the woman I was married to, my tendency had been to gravitate to dependent women. K. was instead a breath-taking beauty who was strong, self-sufficient and successful. She had no need for a caretaker but now in her late 20s was ready to make a commitment and settle down. We fell head over heals in love, but did not find a happy ending.

Time has a way of creating rearward facing clarity. The late 80’s were when the spiral into my dysfunctions began in earnest. I became far too good at deception (although years later I learned not nearly as good as I thought at the time), but I sure did deceive myself and hurt a lot of people in the process.

Absolutely and without doubt I loved K. and to this day believe she loved me. In the early months she and I shared it was my sincere intention to get a divorce so we could be together. For a year and a half we shared long weekends every month or so and even managed to pull off a week-long vacation once that contained some of the most beautiful moments I’ve known. K. and I were well matched from intellect to emotion to politics and food. For a time there was no doubt in either of us that we’d be together the rest of our lives.

Ultimately I did not have the courage to do what was necessary. I never could find the strength to ask my first wife for a divorce. About a year and a half into our relationship K. did the right thing, ended our relationship and moved on with her life. We stayed in touch casually once in a while for another ten years until I began a serious relationship that became my second marriage. A good bit of the mementos of K. and I went up in smoke from my fireplace then. The most treasured keepsakes I sent to her with a note saying I could not longer have contact with her which she honored.

I have written all this to cast four admissions into the world on K.’s behalf: 1) The love I expressed to her was true and real 2) There is a part of my heart that will always belong to her 3) I will always be grateful she loved me,  and,  4) I have carried profound regret for hurting you hidden inside me now for 25 years. I am so very, very sorry. I am grateful for the relief admitting the truth just brought me.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty,
often hot and fierce,
but still only light and flickering.
As love grows older,
our hearts mature
and our love becomes as coals,
deep-burning and unquenchable.
Bruce Lee

Not Just For Now, But For Always

/ James Browning

somewhere-in-time montage“The man of my dreams has almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of, in the deepest and most secret reaches of her heart. I can almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? Forgive me. I have never known this feeling. I have lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder, then, I failed to recognize you? You, who brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way that I can tell you how my life has changed? Any way at all to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There is so much to say. I cannot find the words. Except for these: I love you”. Such would I say to him if he were really here.”

Those words are spoken by Jane Seymour in her character Elise McKenna in a movie that’s now thirty-two years old. As I typed those words my mind screamed, “It can’t have been that long. It just can’t be. Thirty years?!” Logic responds and ways “yes, time has flown by”.

Although not included in Richard Matheson’s book, Elise’s words in the “Somewhere In Time” movie are spoken as a famous actress on stage in 1912 to “the one” she has just fallen in love with (Richard Collier played by Christopher Reeve). Few more beautiful words to express love have ever been written.

“Somewhere In Time” has been described as overly sentimental by those who do not have the well-developed romantic nerve that runs through every fiber of my being. Many of my favorite movies are love stories which have received the same criticism. I simply don’t care and feel sorry for those who can’t know the same deep feelings. It’s a terrible loss they will never be aware of.

The 1980 movie has a deep and special meaning to me that connects me to someone I loved long ago. Clear in my memory is holding hands watching it with tears appearing for both of us more than once as we watched. The shared emotion brought us closer. It’s only a memory, but a dear one I cherish. Feeling so does not mean I wish to go back there and instead speaks of my reverence for time “she and I” shared long ago.

It is sad to me that many people have old, dear memories they hide away and never share. The politics of many relationships make talking about someone from the past difficult and inadvisable. Such behavior is why many people live together for years, yet don’t know know each other. Ego and insecurity are great curses on romance.

Until my memories were awakened I did not become aware that the fictional “anniversary” for the characters in “Somewhere in Time” was this past summer. In the story the special day Elise and Richard share was June 12, 1912. This past June marked one hundred years from that date.

In reading about the movie I was thrilled to learn it is being turned into a musical with a world premier on May 31, 2013 for a five-week run at Portland Center Stage, Portland, OR. My hope is it succeeds and goes national so I get to see it. http://portlandstagereviews.com/2012/10/23/preview-portland-center-stage-presents-the-world-premier-of-a-new-musical-somewhere-in-time/

How grateful I am for that old movie and the past romance it brings back into fully dimensioned memory. Such feelings and words melt my heart: “There is so much to say. I cannot find the words. Except for these: I love you.” WOW!

They wouldn’t understand,
and I don’t feel the need to explain,
simply because I know in my heart how real it was.
When I think of you, I can’t help smiling,
knowing that you’ve completed me somehow.
I love you, not just for now,
but for always, and I dream of the day
that you’ll take me in your arms again.
From “Dear John” by Nicholas Sparks

Too Much Work and Not Enough Play

/ James Browning

rudolphEleven days off work has turned out to be one of the best experiences I have had in ages. Once again I am reminded that too much work and not enough play dulls my senses and washes the color from my life.  In the spirit of that statement I have taken the liberty of re-posting today from a Christmas past.

Originally Posted on December 22, 2011

Yesterday day at work I recited to someone an alternate version of a favorite Christmas song he had never heard.  With it fresh on my mind, I tried it out on two others who it turned out had never heard it as well.  So today it is getting shared here for the “betterment of posterity”.

I have no exact memory of how old I was, but my favorite uncle taught me this alternate version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” when I was still in elementary school.  It took him teaching me on and off for a full weekend before all the words were indelibly stamped in my brain where they have remained now for fifty years.  Here goes:

Randolph, the bow-legged cowboy
Had a very shiny gun
And if you ever saw it
You would turn about and run.

All of the other cowboys
Used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Randolph
Join in any poker games.

Then one day the bank was robbed
And sheriff came to say
“Randolph with your gun so bright
Won’t you guide my posse tonight?”

Then all the cowgirls loved him
As they shouted out with glee
Randolph the bow-legged cowboy
You’ll go down in history!

There are many alternate versions of Christmas carols and poetry of the season, but none I enjoy more than this slightly twisted version of “Twas the Night before Christmas”.  It is a reminder of what the season is truly about.

Tis the month before Christmas, we’re all going nuts;
With so much to do, there are no ifs, ands or buts.
Buy presents, hang tree lights, pop cards in the mail,
Send gift packs, thread popcorn, find turkeys on sale.

Decorations need stringing up all through the house.
And you haven’t a clue what to buy for your spouse.
School concerts, receptions, open houses with friends,
Long lineups, short tempers, tying up the loose ends.

With all our mad dashing, we’re reeling from shock;
Let’s stop for a minute and really take stock.
It’s crassly commercial, the cynical say;
If that’s true, that our fault… it’s us and not they.

Take time for yourself-though hard as that seems—
Enjoy your kids’ laughter, excitement and dreams.
Take a moment out now, don’t get overly riled,
Instead make an angel in snow with your child.

The shortbread can wait, and so can the tree;
What’s important to feel is a child’s sense of glee.
The holidays aren’t about push, rush and shove;
They’re for friendship and sharing and family love.

Hear the bells, feel the warmth, light up with the glow
Of a message first sent to us so long ago:
Peace, love and goodwill, and hope burning bright.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Now is the time of heightened goodwill, of giving, of loving one and all.  It is a time of celebration of children; the ones we adults used to be, the ones we brought into the world and the one who was born in a manger over two thousand years ago.

Aldous Huxley wrote:  Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.  Without doubt that phrase was abundantly true about me during much of my life.  This year I have more Christmas spirit than I probably have ever had and the reason is two-fold and simple:  I have more love in my life than ever before and my gratitude for living is at an all time high and growing.

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
Charles Dickens

Masters of Our Own Lives

/ James Browning

Last evening when I came across Edgar Guest’s Poem below I started to wonder, “when is a man old?” Many say “you’re only as old as you think you are” or “as old as you act”. My vantage point has been one gets old when he or she ceases to ask questions, stops seeking the truth and does not embrace being alive to the best of their ability.

While more engaged with life than most fifty-nine year olds, the years do count up and my body shows wear. Aches are regular where none used to be. The constant ringing in my ears I don’t notice until I think about it (like now) and I don’t have the energy I once did. This 1953 model is in good shape but has a lot of miles on it.

On the flip side of perspective, I am smarter and more even-tempered than ever before. The vein of kindness in me is wider and stronger than ever. Good memories harmonize better all the time within as the bad ones grow fainter. Life all around me is not only adornment for my existence. I actually see and marvel at living now fully realizing one day this reality will not be mine. Though acceptance of the impermanence of things, of myself, comes a much deeper appreciation for all that currently “is”.

“When An Old Man Gets To Thinking” by Edgar A. Guest

When an old man gets to thinking of the years he’s traveled through,
He hears again the laughter of the little ones he knew.
He isn’t counting money, and he isn’t planning schemes;
He’s at home with friendly people in the shadow of his dreams.

When he’s lived through all life’s trials and his sun is in the west,
When he’s tasted all life’s pleasures and he knows which ones were best,
Then his mind is stored with riches, not of silver and of gold,
But of happy smiling faces and the joys he couldn’t hold.

Could we see what he is seeing as he’s dreaming in his chair,
We should find no scene of struggle in the distance over there.
As he counts his memory treasures, we should see some shady lane
Where’s he walking with his sweetheart, young, and arm in arm again.

We should meet with friendly people, simple, tender folk and kind,
That had once been glad to love him. In his dreaming we should find
All the many little beauties that enrich the lives of men
That the eyes of youth scarce notice and the poets seldom pen.

Age will tell you that the memory is the treasure-house of man.
Gold and fleeting fame may vanish, but life’s riches never can;
For the little home of laughter and the voice of every friend
And the joys of real contentment linger with us to the end.

I hope my destiny includes one day being an “old man” like Guest wrote about. I would be grateful to live to a more straight forward time; one of old age when calmly sitting and sweetly remembering takes up most of my time.

The things we think about, brood on, dwell on…
influence our life in a thousand ways.
When we can actually choose the direction
of our thoughts instead of just letting them
run along the grooves of conditioned thinking,
we become the masters of our own lives.
Eknath Easwaran

August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012

/ James Browning

It was five days from my sixteenth birthday at 9:56pm CT when Neil Armstrong spoke the immortal words that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. The date was July 20, 1969 and those words were heard live by 450 million people.

Clearly that date was a while ago. My sense of things says it was a few decades but realizing it has been 43 years brings the knowing it was longer ago than my first sense realizes. “tempus fugit” or “time flees” or as is more commonly said today “time flies”. Yes, it does. And the young and vibrant American hero who first walked on the moon all those years ago died yesterday.

New reports will go over and over Neil Armstrong’s life as an astronaut but few will mention some of the odds and ends that make him more accessibly human. Not only has a country lost a hero and citizen, but a family has lost a brother, father, uncle and grandfather. Armstrong was an ordinary man who did extraordinary things.

He was a “Leo” born Aug. 5, 1930 and his first airplane ride was at age six in a Ford Tri-Motor airplane. Armstrong became a licensed pilot on his 16th birthday before he received a driver’s license. He was active in Boy Scouts and achieved the highest rank of Eagle Scout

His overall grade for his bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering was 4.8 out of 6.0. Armstrong was pledged to a fraternity and wrote and co-directed its musical as part of the all-student revue. He was a baritone player in the Purdue All-American Marching Band.

Armstrong flew 78 combat missions in the Korean conflict and was awarded three medals for his service. After leaving NASA, he joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace engineering for eight years.

He was married twice, first to Janet in the 50’s and after they divorced Carol became his wife in the mid 90’s. Armstrong had 3 children with his first wife including one that died around age three.

While still on the moon and being congratulated by then President Nixon, Armstrong said It’s a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, and with interests and the curiosity and with the vision for the future.

Remembering the experience of the historical Apollo 11 flight lifting off, Neil Armstrong said that: It felt like a train on a bad railroad track, shaking in every direction. And it was loud, really loud.

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, His family made this simple request. “Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.” share your thoughts at Twitter tag: “#WinkAtTheMoon

I can vividly remember watching the not very clear images on a small black and white television of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. Those strong impressions made on a young teenager then have faded little. Thank you Mr. Armstrong. I will not forget you.

1. Make your own choices about how you want to live your life
2. Don’t let others define you
3. Cherish the things that are most important to you
4. Ignore the criticism of others
5. Stay true to what you believe in
Neil Armstrong’s “Lessons about Life”

As Much Distortion as Reality

/ James Browning

Look not at the days gone by with a forlorn heart.
They were simply the dots we can now connect with our present,
to help us draw the outline of a beautiful tomorrow.
Dodinsky

Holding memories too closely isn’t healthy. Grabbing on excessively to good memories eventually squeezes most of the goodness out of them.

Clinging to bad memories makes them stick more firmly to you like a used piece of tape you can’t shake off your fingers. Either way, spending time in yesterday causes minutes of today to be left empty and colorless.

The past can’t be recalled accurately.  Its impossible to come up with anything except a blurry representation of it.  What we recall is as much distortion as reality just like how carnival mirrors reflect our image back to us twisted and stretched.

Ultimately the past is past and with no amount of effort can it ever be seen as it was.

Without doubt I am aware I continue to recall the past with too much frequency, playing it over again hoping for some insight or change in what I remember. There is progress though! I do it far less than I used to and find that simple fact makes being alive today a better experience. The possibilities of the future appearing brighter has slowly become a way of life. I am grateful!

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal.
Live this day as if it were your last.
The past is over and gone.
The future is not guaranteed.
Wayne Dyer

Refuse to Entertain Your Old Pain

/ James Browning

Reading is a favorite pastime and over the last fifteen years I have lost the majority of my interest in fiction; largely abandoned for non-fiction.  My preference has become reading about what actually happened, what others make of things or else simply reading to learn.

With this focus on fact, not fiction, occasionally I stumble across just the right words at a moment when they’re particularly meaningful to me. Such was the case with the following by Mary Manin Morrissey that grabbed my attention last night:

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?

One foot on the brakes… Refuse to entertain your old pain… Those phrases rang loudly with insight for me the first, second, third and more times I read that paragraph over and over. My reaction is a good example of how a guilty man knows what’s true much more so than an innocent one. I do hold on to the past too tightly and dance with the pain back there far too often.

Today I make a renewed commitment to slacken the pressure of my foot on the ‘brake pedal’. Anew I promise to loosen my hold on the past. To the best of my ability I will “refuse to entertain” my old hurts and endeavor to increase my proficiency in doing that. I am grateful for the breath of fresh air just thinking these thoughts brings at the start of this new day.

You will find that it is necessary to let things go;
simply for the reason that they are heavy.
So let them go, let go of them.
I tie no weights to my ankles.
C. JoyBell C.

Of Beauty and Youth and Grace

/ James Browning

Yesterday morning brought am early morning appointment at the dentist to check out some minor tooth discomfort I have been having intermittently. Luckily it turned out to be no real concern and the appointment was short and routine. As I was checking out I could see into the lobby as a woman probably somewhere in the 85-90 year old range was signing in. Most of her hair was gone and her skin was blotched and showed marks where things had been removed numerous time. In spite of her appearance, she seemed to have arrived on her own and get around well with the help of a cane.

With my checkout business done, I came around the counter to the exit into the lobby. As I walked through the doorway the aged woman and I made direct eye contact that lasted for a second or two. I said “good morning” to her in a way she knew I meant it. The instant I spoke her eyes sparkled and on her face came a smile that was warm and kind. Driving into work after the appointment I realized how special that little moment she and I shared really was.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to notice old people more and let them know I see them. Sometimes it is just a smile, giving them my place in line, opening a door or a simple verbal greeting, but I go out of my way to do it. Our culture has a bad habit of treating the old as if they didn’t exist. I read once what elders want most from the rest of us is to acknowledge their existence and still see value in them. I have never forgotten that.

If I was 30 years older the woman with the bright smile and sparkling eyes at my dentist’s office might have been my girlfriend, wife, friend or peer. What we shared was ever so brief but in my memory she will be recorded as a temporary friend of the shortest duration so far. I will not forget her and will be grateful always for the moment’s grace we shared.

From “The Old Stage Queen” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Back in the box by the curtains shaded,
She sits alone by the house unseen;
Her eye is dim, her cheek is faded,
She who was once the people’s queen.

The curtain rolls up, and she sees before her
A vision of beauty and youth and grace.
Ah! no wonder all hearts adore her,
Silver-throated and fair of face.

Out of her box she leans and listens;
Oh, is it with pleasure or despair
That her thin cheek pales and her dim eye glistens,
While that fresh young voice sings the grand old air?

She is back again in the Past’s bright splendor–
When life seemed worth living, and love a truth,
Ere Time had told her she must surrender
Her double dower of fame and youth.

It is she herself who stands there singing
To that sea of faces that shines and stirs;
And the cheers on cheers that go up ringing
And rousing the echoes–are hers–all hers.