University of Virginia Library

XXII.

[A summer week was closing in the dusk]

A summer week was closing in the dusk,
When, after many years, full of events,
I enter'd once again my mother-town.—
The ancient steeple boom'd, and shook the streets
With old-remember'd clangour, and the spires
Struck out the hours and quarters in known tongues.
But in the crowded streets I was unknown,
And wander'd like a ghost that sees, unseen.
Companions of my youth came past. How old,
And burden'd with the world they seem'd! Ah, me!
Can I, who feel so young, look old to them?
And some I knew as poor and dull of brain,

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105

Seem'd now the portly leaders of the town!
Whilst others, born of leaders, seem'd their slaves,
And pass'd with skulking cringe. The Provost's son,
Who carried off the prizes in our class,
Now wheel'd a brewer's barrow, and the lad
That swept the school was Provost. Gray old men,
An age before my time, came shuffling past;
But through their wrinkles I could recognize
The features of their prime. Through lighted panes
I look'd into the shops, and heads inside,
That I had known as rattle-brains, were now
Moider'd with money, with accounts perplex'd.
And some were eaten to the bones with care,
While others laugh'd and fatten'd. I mistook
The joyous maiden of my earliest youth—
Now sadly overlarded—for her mother.
And by her stood herself, her very self—
Not one whit changed in twenty changeful years—
Who lifted up her sweet blue eyes, and mine
Fell lost within them; yet she turn'd away,
Unconsciously, and look'd elsewhere. Alas!
It was the daughter of my sweet Blue-eyes!

But in my wand'rings, ere the darkness fell,
I turn'd me down an old and grimy close,
And stood before the house where first I breathed;
Now tenantless and haunted, all its panes
Stoned in, its casements broken, and its doors
Seal'd up with rust and mould; its sooty sides
Streak'd and begrimed with rivulets of rain;

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106

Shut off from noise, yet in the midst of noise;
But all so quiet, I could hear the rats,
'Mid rattling plaster, squeaking in the walls.
And then, the dank thick smell! 'twould kill me now;
Yet I remember well, it was the same
'Mid which, in those unsanitary days,
I lived and throve. And wonderfully well
We live in any vile condition'd place,
So long as ignorance conceals the risk:
But once our fears are chemically waked,
We sicken where we throve. And so in morals:—
Friend, you may practice all your tricks of trade,
And yet escape damnation: but for me,
I do them at my peril. The false act
Soon withers with my victim; but its roots
Are here, and grow up nettles in my breast.

The kirk-bells rang the quiet Sabbath in—
Along the drowsy streets, up to the hills,
And down the sleeping river out to sea.
A solemn hush fill'd all the town—how strange,
That absence of all noise can fill a place!
The tiny bugle of a bee was heard—

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107

Perhaps imagined; and a butterfly,
Stray'd from its clover fields, pass'd through the streets

I left the town, and took the slope that leads
Up to the round green hill that overlooks
The sweep of twenty miles: and as I clomb
The alter'd road, here levell'd and there wall'd,
I came to dim remember'd marks, like scars
Forgotten in the face of one we know.

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108

And portions of the road, that were of old
Traversed by stepping stones, had to be cross'd
Upon the self-same stones. The ones that splash'd
I knew, and took them with a tentful step.—
And there, the single ash, by gusty nights
Blown into gnarly knots. Ah, me! these years
Have I been roaming up and down the earth,
And every night drawn to a shelter'd bed,
Whilst thou, unhoused, in this bleak nook hast borne
The torture of the winds. But hence thy tough
And knotty strength. If we had never crept
From wind and wet, but given them brave front,
Much of thy rude health had been ours, and less
Of wheeze and rheum, and dread of blessed air.

I slowly clomb the hill, each step a thought,
And on its southern peak, as on a cloud,
I stood. The little world lay all beneath,
And noon sat high amid the spotless blue.
So calm and still, a steamboat's heavy beat
Far up the river came, and up the hill.
Her lazy smoke, between the sky and sea,
Trail'd, like the fabled serpent of the deep.
And where the river with the ocean meets,
The dreamy capes lay out against the sky
Like streaks of cloud. Around me, near and far,
Each clump of trees, with its old nodding tower,
Came to me like a mother's evening tale.
And at my feet the old town lay. I stood
Above its thin blue sheet of Sabbath smoke,

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109

That like a calm lake hung upon the air.
I stood above the swallows, and they skimm'd
The fields of azure far above the streets.
I stood above the sparrows and the daws
That clamour'd round the steeple. Above all
I stood, and deep within my being came
The spirit of the picture. But no words
Can give it out again. I only name
The objects that it breathed in.

Then I turn'd
Inland, and from a northern peak re-lived
Old haunts of youth. Far in the background rose
The sharp blue hills, outlined against the sky,
And sunny gleams ran into dusky glens,
And I could hear, methought, the eagle's cry
Deep, deep within them. Nearer by, a wood
Of dark firs slept and dream'd of old weird days.
Imagination could not bring a voice
From that wood's silence: it was dead asleep.
And nearer still, the legendary holmes,
Broomy and green, with many a fairy ring;
Their burn that sings, its loneliness to cheer;
Their old meal-mill, built in against a bank,
Its dusty roof o'ergrown with grass and corn,
Its door choked up with docks, its water-wheel
Half hid in nettles and o'er-run with moss.
And nearer yet, green lanes, where I could see
The flaxen heads of children plucking flowers,
And hear their ringing voices. Close at hand,

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110

The sweet red-linnet sat among the whins,
And piped a Doric song. But what avails
This bald vocabulary? I would give
The living something that came out of things,
And flow'd through all my being—this I'd give
To quicken you, but offer only words.

The sunset drew me to a western green
That looks far upland 'mong the golden hills.—
A crowd was on the green; for through the land
The fervour of revived religion ran.
Long evening shadows slanted to the east,
The river, widened to a lake of gold,
Lay mirroring the sunset; and a psalm,
On wings of simple harmony, arose,
And pass'd into the evening as a part
Of its own beauty. Amidst bended eyes,
A white-hair'd elder, with upturnèd brow
To listening Heaven, breathed the prayer of all.
Then some spoke fierce reproof, some dove-like hope,
Some dealt damnation, and some sprinkled balm.
But there was one that spoke, who seem'd to lead
The order of the worship. Him I knew
In early youth, his years scarce more than mine.
And this is he, dull pate! so glib, so pat,
So confident, so full of telling texts,
So spirit-stirring, and withal so changed!
His words were manna to their hungry souls;
But—shall I own it?—they were gall to me.
Here has he rested peacefully at home,

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111

And all the affluence of a mind matured,
Comes graciously unto him. I have ranged
From land to land, and sail'd the thoughtful seas,
And heard and seen a world-deal more than he,
And crept from blind belief to unbelief,
And struggled out of that,—yet here I stand,
My mind a ravell'd skein, loose ends of thought,
With no continuous thread of any kind:
And place me where he speaks, I'd find my thoughts
All run to dusty wool, no threads at all,
And which, if beaten out, would only blind!

Thank God, I know not anything, but live
In thoughtful ignorance, and give wide marge
To opposite beliefs, despising none,
Yet taking none as final. Thus, each day
Breaks like a new creation; every look
Takes some new wonder out of things seal'd up

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112

As known and done with; and a child-like trust
Of boundless possibilities retains
The full free joy of childhood in the man.