GODFREY. 

My lot has been amid the wild, fresh scenes
Of Nature’s wide domain; where all is free. 
Life seems t’ inhale the vigorous breath required
To struggle with the elements around,
And thus keeps Time at bay.  Like good old Boone,
The patriarch hunter, in the forest wilds
I’ve found that God supplied, and healed, and blessed. 
Men live too fast in cities.

MARGRAVE. 
Not if they
Would give their energies a noble aim. 
The opportunities to compass good,
And good effected—­these are dates that give
The sum of human life.

GODFREY. 
True; most true. 
It is in cities where men congregate,
And good and evil strive for mastery,
The sternest strength of soul must needs be tested. 
But all that stirs the passions makes us old. 
’Twould wear me out—­this round of ceaseless toil,
In the same range of artificial life;
And I must greet you with a traveler’s haste,
And back to my free forest home again.

                      MARGRAVE. 
  ’Tis well that every part and scene in life
  Can find its actors ready for the stage,
  And well that our wide land has scope for all. 
  And yet to feel that those who raised together
  Their hope-swelled canvass when life’s voyage began—­
  Like ships, storm-parted, on the world’s rough sea—­
  Can sail no more in sweet companionship! 
  ’Tis a sad thought!  Of all our college friends,
  But one, beside myself, is here to greet you.

GODFREY. 
Who is he?—­There is one would glad my heart. 
When college scenes arise, yourself and Bolton—­

MARGRAVE. 
’Tis he I mean.

GODFREY. 
What, Bolton?  Harry Bolton? 
I heard some fellow-travelers in the cars
Talking of one Judge Bolton, as the man
Who filled his orb of duty like the sun—­
Shining on all, and drawing all t’ obey. 
Surely this cannot be our Harry Bolton—­
The frank, warm-hearted, but most wayward youth. 
Whose mind was like a comet—­now all light. 
Anon, away where reason could not follow. 
He surely has not reached this grave estate
Of Judge!

MARGRAVE. 
The same, the same—­our Harry Bolton. 
And better still, a man whom all men honor.

                    GODFREY. 

I must see him.  Let us go at once.  I feel
A joy like that of Joseph’s when he found
That his young brother Benjamin had come. 
Though now the order is reversed, for here
The youngest claims the honors.

MARGRAVE. 
No, not so. 
Your order should be first in estimation,
And always is, where men are trained for heaven
And mine would be the second, were we wise,
And followed Nature as you follow God. 
And Law is the third station on the mount,
When men are placed as lights above life’s path
And Bolton is, in truth, a light and guide.