 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
DILL'S LODGINGS
I see the little dingy street,
The little room three stories high,
The little woman, clean and neat,
With kindly smile, and kindling eye,
The paper chintz, the staring prints,
The bird whose carol would not cease,
And the cracked china ornaments
Ranged stiffly on the mantelpiece.
The little room three stories high,
The little woman, clean and neat,
With kindly smile, and kindling eye,
The paper chintz, the staring prints,
The bird whose carol would not cease,
And the cracked china ornaments
Ranged stiffly on the mantelpiece.
A dingy street among the poor,
Thronging with children day and night,
With sluttish women at every door
Gossiping in the waning light:
Yet oh the nights I there have seen!
The humour kindling every face,
The play of wit, the logic keen
That glorified the homely place!
Thronging with children day and night,
With sluttish women at every door
Gossiping in the waning light:
Yet oh the nights I there have seen!
The humour kindling every face,
The play of wit, the logic keen
That glorified the homely place!
Simple our life, with little change,
And yet it was a bright romance,
Fresh with the wonderful and strange
Of youth's enchanted golden trance;
How fresh in powers, in faiths, in thoughts!
How full that fertile time appears!—
We jotted down in pregnant notes
The sum of all the after years.
And yet it was a bright romance,
Fresh with the wonderful and strange
Of youth's enchanted golden trance;
How fresh in powers, in faiths, in thoughts!
How full that fertile time appears!—
We jotted down in pregnant notes
The sum of all the after years.
The scholar's aim we held aloft,
The fearless search for what is true,
As fresh discoveries called us oft
Old schemes of Nature to review,
And to adjust the thought and fact,
And to make room for growth yet more,
And to believe that God may act
In ways we had not dreamed before.
The fearless search for what is true,
As fresh discoveries called us oft
Old schemes of Nature to review,
And to adjust the thought and fact,
And to make room for growth yet more,
And to believe that God may act
In ways we had not dreamed before.
We had our passing hours of doubt,
But did not nurse the shadowy throng,
For we had work to go about
That would not hold with doubting long.
And looking back on those brave years,
Unspotted by the world and free,
Meagre and poor to-day appears,
When earth is so much more to me.
But did not nurse the shadowy throng,
For we had work to go about
That would not hold with doubting long.
And looking back on those brave years,
Unspotted by the world and free,
Meagre and poor to-day appears,
When earth is so much more to me.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |