We’ve cleared the station—free at last
From darkness, din, and worry;
By red-brick villas, shady roads
And garden-plots we hurry.
And now green miles of pasture-land
Flit by, with budding hedges,
And far to Southward I can see
The purple mountain ridges.
My fellow-travellers pretermit,
Seeing there is no danger,
That anxious glance with which we greet
The presence of a stranger.
Whom have we? First, some man of means
(I guess), brow-wrinkled, dull-eyed,
His face the index of a soul
By cares unworthy sullied.
And then a lady, whom I deem
Some mask of Fashion merely;
And last, a maid of nineteen years,
Who, since I’ve seen her clearly,
Has won the careless glance I gave
To linger, as delighted
As with some green-rimmed waterspring
In midst of deserts blighted.
What is her charm? Not very fair,
Nor luring to the senses—
And yet her frank and girlish grace,
Her lack of small pretences,
Her clear, unconscious hazel eyes,
Pure lips, and simple neatness,
Fill my heart as I gaze on her
With deep and tender sweetness.
······
The train has rolled without a break
For half an hour or more, perhaps;
My wealthy cit has fall’n asleep,
Will soon begin to snore, perhaps;
Kind Morpheus touch’d him as he scanned
The last returns of traffic—
The lady clad in furs and silks
Is trifling with her Graphic.
The maiden looks with dreaming eyes
As wood and field and river
Flash past our roaring carriage-wheels
In whirling dance forever.
What are the thoughts that smooth her brows
To such content, I wonder,
While clangs about our silent group
The railroad’s rhythmic thunder?
But now more slow the landscape moves—
We reach a little station—
And how the maiden’s face has changed,
Lit up with expectation!
A brother, with his sister’s eyes,
Brown-cheeked from sun and heather,
Awaits her; and with half a sigh
I watch them leave together.
The heavy train regathers speed,
And minute after minute
The country station drops behind—
Some spell is surely in it!
For now my fellow-travellers seem
No mark for peevish scorning—
Those withered lives had surely once
The innocence of morning.
But ah, the world’s use, soon or late,
Dispels the early glamour,
And faint the spheral music rings
In this incessant clamour!
Save when, at times, in some strange lull
Of tyrannous self-seeking,
The heart of memory is thrilled
By ancient voices speaking.
And then the cloud in which we walk
Rolls by us, and from dreaming
We wake to see the primal world
In beauty round us gleaming;
Then common things to common eyes
Their secret life surrender,
And glow beneath the light of day
With visionary splendour.
·······
What wrought me so? I only know
I bowed in homage ardent
Before some high mysterious Power
A heart a little hardened.
That glory flashed upon a soul
By doubt and self o’erladen,
When all I saw in very sooth
Was but a simple maiden.