“My school-boy friend gave me a cordial greeting;
That honest lawyer bade me welcome, too,
And doted on my progress and the advice
He gave me ere I left my native town. 
Since first the iron-horse had coursed the vale
Five years had fled—­five prosperous, magic years,
And well nigh five since I had left my home. 
These prosperous years had wrought upon the place
Their wonders till I hardly knew the town. 
The broad and stately blocks of brick that shamed
The weather-beaten wooden shops I knew
Seemed the creation of some magic hand. 
Adown the river bank the town had stretched,
Sweeping away the quiet grove of pines
Where I had loved to ramble when a boy
And see the squirrels leap from tree to tree
With reckless venture, hazarding a fall
To dodge the ill-aimed arrows from my bow. 
The dear old school-house on the hill was gone: 
A costly church, tall-spired and built of stone
Stood in its stead—­a monument to man. 
Unholy greed had felled the stately pines,
And all the slope was bare and desolate. 
Old faces had grown older; some were gone,
And many unfamiliar ones had come. 
Boys in their teens had grown to bearded men,
And girls to womanhood, and all was changed,
Save the old cottage-home where I was born. 
The elms and butternuts in the meadow-field
Still wore the features of familiar friends;
The English ivy clambered to the roof,
The English willow spread its branches still,
And as I stood before the cottage-door
My heart-pulse quickened, for methought I heard
My mother’s footsteps on the ashen floor.

“The rumor I had heard was verified;
The wedding-day was named and near at hand. 
I met my rival:  gracious were his smiles: 
Glad as a boy that robs the robin’s nest
He grasped the hands of half the men he met. 
Pauline, I heard, but seldom ventured forth,
Save when her doting father took her out
On Sabbath morns to breathe the balmy air,
And grace with her sweet face his cushioned pew. 
The smooth-faced suitor, old dame Gossip said,
Made daily visits to her father’s house,
And played the boy at forty years or more,
While she had held him off to draw him on.

[Illustration]

“I would not fawn upon the hand that smote;
I would not cringe beneath its cruel blow,
Nor even let her know I cared for it. 
I kept aloof—­as proud as Lucifer. 
But when the church-bells chimed on Sabbath morn
To that proud monument of stone I went—­
Her father’s pride, since he had led the list
Of wealthy patrons who had builded it—­
To hear the sermon—­for methought Pauline
Would hear it too.  Might I not see her face,
And she not know I cared to look upon it? 
She came not, and the psalms and sermon fell
Upon me like an autumn-mist of rain. 
I met her once by chance upon the street—­
The day before the appointed wedding-day—­