For long—long years, I saw no more of my old school; and when at length the view came, great changes—crashing tornadoes—had swept over my path! I thought no more of startling the villagers, or astonishing the black-eyed girl. No, no! I was content to slip quietly through the little town, with only a tear or two, as I recalled the dead ones, and mused upon the emptiness of life!
THE SEA
As I look back, boyhood with its griefs and cares vanishes into the proud stateliness of youth. The ambition and the rivalries of the college life—its first boastful importance as knowledge begins to dawn on the wakened mind, and the ripe, and enviable complacency of its senior dignity—all scud over my memory like this morning breeze along the meadows; and like that, too, bear upon their wing a chillness—as of distant ice-banks.
Ben has grown almost to manhood; Lilly is living in a distant home; and Isabel is just blooming into that sweet age where womanly dignity waits her beauty; an age that sorely puzzles one who has grown up beside her—making him slow of tongue, but very quick of heart.
As for the rest—let us pass on.
The sea is around me. The last head-lands have gone down under the horizon, like the city steeples, as you lose yourself in the calm of the country, or like the great thoughts of genius, as you slip from the pages of poets into your own quiet reverie.
The waters skirt me right and left; there is nothing but water before, and only water behind. Above me are sailing clouds, or the blue vault, which we call, with childish license—heaven. The sails, white and full, like helping friends are pushing me on: and night and day are distant with the winds which come and go—none know whence, and none know whither. A land bird flutters aloft, weary with long flying; and lost in a world where are no forests but the careening masts, and no foliage but the drifts of spray. It cleaves awhile to the smooth spars, till urged by some homeward yearning, it bears off in the face of the wind, and sinks, and rises over the angry waters, until its strength is gone, and the blue waves gather the poor flutterer to their cold and glassy bosom.