The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

There's an old University town
Between the Don and the Dee
Looking over the grey sand dunes,
Looking out on the cold North Sea.
Breezy and blue the waters be,
And rarely there you shall fail to find
The white horse-tails lashing out in the wind,
Or the mists from the land of ice and snow
Creeping over them chill and slow.
Sitting o' nights in his silent room,
The student hears the lonesome boom
Of the breaking waves on the long sand reach,
And the chirming of pebbles along the beach;
And gazing out on the level ground,
Or the hush of keen stars wheeling round,
He feels the silence in the sound.

So, hearkening to the City's stir,
Alone in some still house of God
Whose solemn aisles are only trod
By rarely-coming worshipper,
At times, beneath the fret and strife,
The far-off hum, the creaking wain,
The hurrying tread of eager gain,
And all the tide of alien life,
We catch the Eternal Silence best,
And unrest only speaks of rest.
O'er the College Chapel a grey stone crown
Lightsomely soars above tree and town,
Lightsomely fronts the Minster towers,
Lightsomely chimes out the passing hours
To the solemn knell of their deep-toned bell;
Kirk and College keeping time,
Faith and Learning, chime for chime.
The Minster stands among the graves,
And its shadow falls on the silent river;
The Chapel is girt with young Life's waves,
And the pulses of hope there are passioning ever.—
But death is in life, and life is in death;
Being is more than a gasp of breath:
We come and go, we are seen and lost,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom;
And oft this body is the tomb,
And the Life is then with the silent host.

In the old University town,
Looking out on the cold North Sea,
'Twixt the Minster towers and the College crown,
On a winter night as the snow came down
In broad flakes tremulously,
Falling steady, and falling slow,
Nothing seen but the falling snow,
A youth, with strained and weary looks,
Sat by a table piled with books,

And a shaded lamp that gleamed among
Pages of writing, large and strong.
A glance of sharp impatience flashed
Out of his dark and deep-set eye,
As he lifted his head, and hastily dashed
The hair from a forehead broad and high:
For there was a crash and a clamour and ringing
In the room overhead, and a chorus singing,
As the bell tolled midnight from near the graves,
And ere its slow deep note had died,
The chime from the College crown replied,
And then came the boom of the breaking waves.

Some twenty and three years he had seen,
Or more perchance; 'tis hard to tell
The age of a face so strong and keen,
The years of a form that was hardened well
By the winter's cold and the summer's heat,
And the mountain winds and the rain and sleet.
Big-boned, with the look of unformed power;
In body and brain and passion strong:
Over his square brow fell a shower
Of black hair, waving and thick and long.
It was a great brown hand that gripp'd
The pliant quill o'er the blotted sheet,—
No soft and clerkly finger slipt
Over the pages, glib and fleet;
More like that of a man with sword equipt,
Grasping the hilt his foe to meet.
An eager, strenuous spirit, meaning
To do with might what he had to do,
And rarely trusting, never leaning,
But self-reliant and bold and true;
A nature rugged and hard and strong;
Yet, as among the rocks and fells,
Where most the storms rage loud and long,
The deepest silence also dwells,
And there are brightest mossy wells
Among the nodding heather bells:
So in his stormy spirit dwelt
The hush of that religious sense,
The silence of that great reverence
Which the strong and brave have always felt;
Nor less the tender beauty wrought
By fresh well-springs of feeling deep
And Love, that whether we wake or sleep,
Brightens and sweetens every lot.

In the room overhead a clamour rang,
But hushed for a moment, as some one sang
Cheery and clearly, each note like a bell
Floating the words off, round and well.