A RAILWAY JOURNEY

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.