A SIMPLE print upon my study wall,
I see you smile at it, my masters all,
So simple it could scarce indeed be less—
A shepherd and a little shepherdess
Who let their sheep go grazing, truant-wise,
To look a moment in each other's eyes.
“A gray-haired man of science,” thus your looks,
“Why is this trifle here among his books?”
Ah, well, my answer only this shall be,
Because I too have been in Arcady.

My students give grave greeting as I pass,
Attentive following in talk or class,
Keen-eyed, clear-headed, eager for the truth;
Yet if sometime among them sits a youth
Who scrawls and stares and lets the lesson go
And puts my questions by, unheeding so,
I smile and leave his half-writ rhyme unvexed,
Guessing the face between him and the text.
A foolish thing,—so wise men might agree—
But I wrote verses once—in Arcady.

The little maid who dusts my book-strewn room,
Poor dingy slave of polish and of broom,
Who breaks her singing at my footsteps' sound,
She too her way to that lost land has found.
Last night, a moonlit night and passing late,
Two shadows started as I neared the gate,
And then a whisper, poised 'twixt mirth and awe,
“The old Professor. Mercy, if he saw!”
Ah, child, my eyes had little need to see—
I too have kissed my love—in Arcady.

My mirror gives me back a sombre face,
A gray-haired scholar, old and commonplace,
Who goes on his sedate and dusty ways,
With little thought of rosy yesterdays.
But they who know what eager joy must come
To one long exiled from a well-loved home,
When fares some kinsman from that selfsame land
To give him greeting—they may understand
How dear these little brethren needs must be
For that I too have lived in Arcady.