I Now, O Friend, Whom Noiselessly The Snows Analysis

I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows

Settle around, and whose small chamber grows

Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:



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The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,

Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;

Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees

And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;

A disused quarry, paved with rose plots, hung

With clematis, the barren womb whence sprung

The crow-stepped house itself, that now far seen

Stands, like a bather, to the neck in green.

A disused quarry, furnished with a seat

Sacred to pipes and meditation meet

For such a sunny and retired nook.

There in the clear, warm mornings many a book

Has vied with the fair prospect of the hills

That, vale on vale, rough brae on brae, upfills

Halfway to the zenith all the vacant sky

To keep my loose attention. . . .

Horace has sat with me whole mornings through:

And Montaigne gossiped, fairly false and true;

And chattering Pepys, and a few beside

That suit the easy vein, the quiet tide,

The calm and certain stay of garden-life,

Far sunk from all the thunderous roar of strife.

There is about the small secluded place

A garnish of old times; a certain grace

Of pensive memories lays about the braes:

The old chestnuts gossip tales of bygone days.

Here, where some wandering preacher, blest Lazil,

Perhaps, or Peden, on the middle hill

Had made his secret church, in rain or snow,

He cheers the chosen residue from woe.

All night the doors stood open, come who might,

The hounded kebbock mat the mud all night.

Nor are there wanting later tales; of how

Prince Charlie's Highlanders . . .



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I have had talents, too.In life's first hour

God crowned with benefits my childish head.

Flower after flower, I plucked them; flower by flower

Cast them behind me, ruined, withered, dead.

Full many a shining godhead disappeared.

From the bright rank that once adorned her brow

The old child's Olympus



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Gone are the fair old dreams, and one by one,

As, one by one, the means to reach them went,

As, one by one, the stars in riot and disgrace,

I squandered what . . .



There shut the door, alas! on many a hope

Too many;

My face is set to the autumnal slope,

Where the loud winds shall . . .



There shut the door, alas! on many a hope,

And yet some hopes remain that shall decide

My rest of years and down the autumnal slope.



* * * * *



Gone are the quiet twilight dreams that I

Loved, as all men have loved them; gone!

I have great dreams, and still they stir my soul on high -

Dreams of the knight's stout heart and tempered will.

Not in Elysian lands they take their way;

Not as of yore across the gay champaign,

Towards some dream city, towered . . .

and my . . .

The path winds forth before me, sweet and plain,

Not now; but though beneath a stone-grey sky

November's russet woodlands toss and wail,

Still the white road goes thro' them, still may I,

Strong in new purpose, God, may still prevail.



* * * * *



I and my like, improvident sailors!



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At whose light fall awaking, all my heart

Grew populous with gracious, favoured thought,

And all night long thereafter, hour by hour,

The pageant of dead love before my eyes

Went proudly, and old hopes with downcast head

Followed like Kings, subdued in Rome's imperial hour,

Followed the car; and I . . .

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