VIII

All stirring impresses of life were sobered by the scene,
While staid reflection looked within the glass of what had been,
For not a mound I trod on was forgotten now, or tree
Rose in that surging scene whose image had not entered me;

IX

Then when material Nature, mother-like, embraced her child;
Then when each impulse flowed like hers, fresh, free, and undefiled;
I stood, the Man, returned; the breeze that o'er my forehead blew
Was welcomed as a blessing which that wild boy never knew!

X

But where the strength, the abounding health, the youth's elastic tread,
The bird's nest won, the cricket run, the leap exulting sped,
The conquest-wreath, sought ardently by me aspiring then,
As in the strife of after-life among contending men?

XI

The lark soared upward from the turf and cleaved the air along;
Intoxicate with joy she poured forth madly in her song;
The clouds on the blue sky reposed, and silently revealed
The waiting aspect and the calm on each vast forehead sealed.

XII

The thistle's beard flew past me, but, as once, I chased it not;
I stood where games were played, familiar names I had forgot;
I saw my co-mates living round, I met each answering eye,
I heard their ardent voices fill the halls of memory!

XIII

I clasped their hands again, I joined the exulting game, I chased
With them the bounding football, or the covert path way traced,
Where, when the holidays drew nigh, I loved alone to roam,
To picture forth my mother's rapture welcoming me home.

XIV

Why sunk those voices in me, an oppression chill and drear?
A pain within my deep heart felt, in my dimmed eyes the tear?
I seemed on the bleak shoal of time left desolate and lone;
I asked of startled consciousness where vanished youth was flown.