Mother tells me "Happy Dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me lyin' all alone an' seein' things at night!
Sometimes they are as black as ink, an' other times they're white—
But the color ain't no difference when you're seein' things at night.
In all that Field wrote, whether in prose or rhyme, for the Denver Tribune nothing contributed to his literary reputation or gave promise of the place in American letters he was to attain, save one little bit of fugitive verse, which was for years to justify its title of "The Wanderer." It contains one of the prettiest, tenderest, most vitally poetic ideas that ever occurred to Eugene Field. And yet he deliberately disclaimed it in the moment of its conception and laid it, like a little foundling, at the door of Madame Modjeska. The expatriation of the Polish actress, between whom and Field there existed a singularly warm and enduring friendship, formed the basis for the allegory of the shell on the mountain, and doubtless suggested to him the humor, if not the sentiment, of attributing the poem to her and writing it in the first person. The circumstances of its publication justify its reproduction here, although I suppose it is one of the most familiar of Field's poems. I copy it from his manuscript:
THE WANDERER
Upon a mountain height, far from the sea,
I found a shell,
And to my listening ear this lonely thing