Old Landmarks

The log flames, as they leap and fall, Cast ancient shadows on the wall; Again I hear the south-west blow About the house, as long ago We heard it, when we gathered round The hearth made homelier by the sound That in the chimney caverns keened And told of things the darkness screened. Dim in their panels round the room The old unchanging faces loom; And soft upon the crimson robe, The hand that rests upon a globe, The dusky frames, the faded tints, The flicker of the hearth-light glints. Out in the yard familiar tones Of voices reach me; on the stones A waggon rumbles, and a bark Welcomes an inmate from the dark. It might be twenty years ago, So much of all we used to know Remains unchanged; and yet I feel Some want that makes it half unreal. For we who long ago were part Of all we knew, the very heart Of all we loved, let somewhere slip The bonds of that old comradeship. The past awakes; but while I muse Here in the same old scenes, I lose The paths to which we once had clues. Along familiar ways we went All day, at every turn intent To mark where Time had made a theft, Or undisturbed our treasure left. Here an old tree was down, and there A roof had fallen, a hearth was bare, Where once we saw amid the smoke The glowing turf, the kindly folk. Here one we had watched beside the plough Stride with his horses, hobbled now; And here there strode a full-grown man Where once a bare-legged urchin ran. And where was now that girl whose feet Once made yon mountain path so sweet? Whose shyness flushed her cheek, the while The mischief hidden in her smile Belied it? I behold the spot Where once she passed but now is not, The grey rocks, where the mountain breeze Fluttered the skirts about her knees. We passed beside the wheelwright’s door Where, as it used to be, the floor Was piled with shavings, and a haze Of dusty motes made dim the rays Of sunlight, and the air was sweet With smell of new-sawn wood and peat. We heard the smithy anvil clink, And saw the fire grow bright and sink In answer to the bellows’ wheeze, While, as of old, between his knees The smith a horse’s fetlocks drew, And rasped the hoof and nailed the shoe. Here, and at every place of call, The welcome that we had from all, The pleasant sound of names outgrown By which in boyhood we were known, Quick springing to their lips, a look That backward to old meetings took Our thoughts, a word that brought to mind Something for ever left behind,-- All, though they blessed us, touched the springs Of tears at the deep heart of things.

We saw the mountains far away, Beyond whose blue horizons lay The wonderlands of which we dreamed Of old; and still their barrier seemed To tell us of the pilgrim quest, And things remote and unpossessed,-- Not of that world which on our hearts Had marked its bounds and graved its charts. They told us of that unknown shore That none can find; but where, before, They called us o’er the world to roam, They now seemed sheltering walls of home. And those old paths whose ends we sought Were dearer for themselves than ought Their ends foretold: no truth could harm Their beauty or undo their charm; No disillusions of the far Could touch their homeliness, or mar The love that made them what they are.

Here we were children: here in turn Our children in the same paths learn The secrets of the woods and flowers, And dream the dreams that once were ours. Their vision keen renews our own, Their certainties our doubts atone, And, sharing in their joys, we weave The years we find with those we leave. A little weary, glad of rest Ourselves, our hearts are in their quest. Pilgrims of life, whose steps have slowed, We love to linger on the road, Or reach the welcome stage, while they Are eager for the unknown way. Some time to come their thoughts will turn To these wild winter nights, and yearn For something lost and left behind, As now I turn.--I hear the wind Keen in the chimney as of old, And darkness falls on field and fold;-- I catch the clue, on scenes that were I look not backward,--I am there! The men are gone, the gates are barred, We steal across the empty yard, The cattle drowse within their stalls, The shelter of our homestead walls Is round us, and the ways without Are filled with mystery and doubt. Over the hidden forest sweeps The wind, and all its haunted deeps Are calling, and we do not dare Farther beyond our walls to fare Than o’er one field, the sheds to gain Where, sheltered from the wind and rain, The watchful shepherd and his dogs Still tarry, and a fire of logs, A lantern’s light, a friendly bark, Make us an outpost in the dark. I miss the way! I drop the clues! Through mists of years again I lose My childhood, and alone I sit And watch the shadows leap and flit Above the hearth. The world that lies Beyond our homely boundaries I know, and in the darkness dwell No hidden foes, no wizard spell. But still the starry deeps are crossed By lonelier paths than those we lost; Still the old wonder and the fear Of what we know not, makes more dear The ways we know; and still, no less Than in my childhood’s days, I bless The shelter of their homeliness.

Amid the boundless and unknown Each calls some guarded spot his own; A shelter from the vast we win In homely hearths, and make therein The glow of light, the sound of mirth, That bind all children of the earth In brotherhood; and when the rain Beats loud upon the window-pane, And shadows of the firelight fall Across the floor and on the wall, And all without is wild and lone On lands and seas and worlds unknown,-- We know that countless hearthlights burn In darkened places, and discern, Inwoven with the troubled plan Of worlds and ways unknown to man, The shelter at the heart of life, The refuge beyond doubt and strife, The rest for every soul outcast, The homely hidden in the vast; And doubt not that whatever fate May lie beyond us, soon or late, However far afield we roam, The unknown way will lead us home.