The shadows Œneath the trees do grow, The sun's embers die away. The hush of night falls o'er these hills At the turning of the day. ŒTwas on nights like this we'd gather here, Brief crowded hours to fill In kinship and good harmony, In my dreams, I can see us still: By candlelight, by whiskey's glow, Each shining upturned face Would raise a voice, would raise a gla** In those wild and tumultuous days, When we neither cared, nor lacked for time, When all the world was wild and new. Nights heady as a gla** of wine, And our mornings filled anew. So it was, those wild and scattered years, We reckoned not the cost, But those who light burned truest and bright Would be numbered amongst the lost. And on chance-met street, or crowded bar We few, now left behind, would raise Not a gla**, but a rueful brow At the pa**ing of our kind. So now I stand beneath these garden walls, The moon above me wheels. The stars are cast through the field of night, And the wind like a drunkard reels Through the empty gate, the silent house, The windows dark and blind But what slips like sand through desperate hand Is treasured yet within the mind. For those lost ones still before me stand All present as of old, In the tangled skein of pa**ing years They shine like threads of gold. So here's a health to those no longer near, And a gla** to those departed Who yet shine on through our darkening years The brave and gentle-hearted.