Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual
life of old,
Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward,
mean and coarse and cold;
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and
vulgar clay,
Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of
hodden gray.
The great eventful Present hides the Past; but
through the din
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life
behind steal in;
And the lore of homeland fireside, and the legendary
rhyme,
Make the task of duty lighter which the true man
owes his time.
So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter
knew,
When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's
moorland graveyards through,
From the graves of old traditions I part the black-
berry-vines,
Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch
the faded lines.
Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse
with rolling pebbles, ran,
The garrison-house stood watching on the gray
rocks of Cape Ann;
On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade,
And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight
overlaid.
On his slow round walked the sentry, south and
eastward looking forth
O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with
breakers stretching north,--
Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged
capes, with bush and tree,
Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and
gusty sea.
Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by
dying brands,
Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets
in their hands;
On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch
was shared,
And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from
beard to beard.
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