Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Forty years were gone and past
With their pleasures and their pains,
Since (a boy) I look'd my last
On those verdant hills and plains,
On that old manorial hall,
On that clump of fir-trees tall;

On that stately avenue,
With its broad umbrageous trees,
Huge in girth and dark of hue,
Haunted by the evening breeze;
On those smooth and spacious lawns
Glistening in the dewy dawns;

On those ancient ponds without,
On those pictur'd walls within,
Where, in merry Christmas rout,
Congregated kith and kin;
Uncles, aunts, and madcap cousins,
Mix'd with neighbouring folk by dozens;

On those garden-walls, where oft
Itch'd my childish palm to reach,
As they blush'd and bloom'd aloft,
Ripening nectarine, plum and peach;

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On that hothouse, filled with grapes,
Cluster'd in such luscious shapes;

On the tiny church hard by,
Scarce beyond the shrubbery bound;
On the spring which sparkled nigh,
Bubbling up from under-ground;
Clear alike in sun and rain,
Though of red chalybeate stain.

“Forty years are gone and past,—
Few perchance may yet remain,—
Shall I see that house at last?
Shall I tread those courts again?”
Like a weak distrustful elf
Thus I reason'd with myself.

“Shall I break the life-long charm
Which hath held it in my heart,
Far from all alloy or harm
Of the daylight world apart:
Treasur'd with each holiest thought
From the depths of memory brought?

“Age hath its own fairy land
Of remember'd hope and joy;
Shall the man reverse the wand
Which enchanted once the boy?
Is it meet that fleshly eye
Into those domains should pry?

“Haply I may find them changed,—
Every feature maim'd and marr'd,

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All their order disarranged,
From saloon to stable yard;
Scarce a vestige haply trace
Of the old heart-cherish'd place.

“Or, if all should yet remain
Undismantled, undefiled,
As the image on my brain
Stamp'd while I was yet a child,—
Its new tenants may not be
Souls that care for mine or me.

“Ill could I endure to pace
That enchanted ground, and feel
That an unfamiliar face
Followed frowning at my heel;
That o'er all the loved domain
Uncongenial spirits reign.

“Grant I come a welcome guest,
Free at will to rove and range,—
Yet I know my brain and breast
Both have undergone a change:
Scenes to me can be no more
What they were in days of yore.

“Most of those beneath the mould
Sleep whom here my childhood knew;
I myself am grown too old
Earliest feelings to renew:
Why should I to life recall
Thoughts so long grown painful all?

“Why with rash advance confound
Worlds which cannot coalesce?

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Why obtrude on tenderest ground
Waning life's impassiveness?
While the present fades so fast,
Let the past remain the past.

“Better dream my ancient dream
Than dissolve, with sudden glare
Of the sun's meridian beam,
Aught so fragile yet so fair;
Childhood's visions are to me
Now the best reality.”

With my heart I held debate,
Thus o'er-mastering pro with con;
Tow'rds the well-remember'd gate
While my steps moved on and on;
Unconvinced by argument
Thither soul and body went.

Up the avenue I pass'd—
Trees well known were yet alive,—
Reach'd the gabel'd front at last,—
Cross'd the trimly-gravell'd drive;
Paused a moment—pull'd the bell,—
That at once dissolved the spell.

That old mansion is no more,
Nor again can ever be
Flush'd and flooded o'er and o'er
With the tints of phantasy;
Auld Lang Syne hath past away,
'Tis a treasure of to-day.

In my mind's retentive eye,
Long 'twas fill'd with faces, hid

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Where no fleshly gaze may pry,—
Underneath the coffin-lid;—
Spectral forms which in my brain
Rose and sank and rose again.

Let the dead embrace the dead,
They with us their work have done;
Lightly near the graves we tread
Which received them one by one:
Time will come when they and we
Shall once more companions be.

But the dwellers where they dwelt,
Though of distant, alien birth,
Feel as once our kindred felt,—
Let them fill their place on earth;
Better is the cordial host
Than the gaunt ancestral ghost.

Better friendly looks and tones,
Mirth and song and social glee,
Than a mouldering heap of bones,—
Though revered as bones can be;
Better woman's living grace
Than the relics of a race.

Pleasant was the image wrought
By remembrance on my brain,
But a brighter than I brought
Bear I from that house again;—
Image pure of household love,
Peace on earth and hope above.

Yet the older vision still
All unfaded doth abide,—

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House and garden, grove and hill,
Not transform'd, but glorified;
Hall and chambers, gallery, stair,
Still precisely what they were.

But in me, since childish years,
Hath a sense develop'd been,
Seized by which the place appears
Bright with more celestial sheen:
What felt I of beauty then?—
'Tis not caught by childish ken.

Now I know what glory floods
Sun-illumined slope and hill;
What the grandeur of the woods,
What the music of the rill;
See how fair is many a spot,
Even to eyes which love it not.

But the master-charm of all
Flows not from the beauty seen
In the old romantic hall,
In its gardens trim and green,
In the pastoral hills which bound
All its fair horizon round,—

Nor from rooms wherein of yore
Princes play'd their boyish games,
Nor from wainscots scribbled o'er
By the second Charles and James,
While their sire in arm'd array
Did his siege to Gloucester lay;

Nor from monumental brass,
Still recording on the wall

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How King George the Third did pass
Once a morning in the hall,
With princesses young and fair,
Racing up and down the stair;—

Not from these, but from the thought
Of the worth which lives there yet,—
Of a pleasure found unsought,
When my sun began to set;
Not, I trust, to pass away
While the spirit warms the clay.