Sketch Of A Schoolfellow.

He sat by me in school. His face is now     Vividly in my mind, as if he went     From me but yesterday - its pleasant smile     And the rich, joyous laughter of his eye,     And the free play of his unhaughty lip,     So redolent of his heart! He was not fair,     Nor singular, nor over-fond of books,     And never melancholy when alone.     He was the heartiest in the ring, the last     Home from the summer's wanderings, and the first     Over the threshold when the school was done.     All of us loved him. We shall speak his name     In the far years to come, and think of him     When we have lost life's simplest passages,     And pray for him - forgetting he is dead -     Life was in him so passing beautiful!     His childhood had been wasted in the close     And airless city. He had never thought     That the blue sky was ample, or the stars     Many in heaven, or the chainless wind     Of a medicinal freshness. He had learn'd     Perilous tricks of manhood, and his hand     Was ready, and his confidence in himself     Bold as a quarreller's. Then he came away     To the unshelter'd hills, and brought an eye     New as a babe's to nature, and an ear     As ignorant of its music. He was sad.     The broad hill sides seem'd desolate, and the woods     Gloomy and dim, and the perpetual sound     Of wind and waters and unquiet leaves     Like the monotony of a dirge. He pined     For the familiar things until his heart     Sicken'd for home! - and so he stole away     To the most silent places, and lay down     To weep upon the mosses of the slopes,     And follow'd listlessly the silver streams,     Till he found out the unsunn'd shadowings,     And the green openings to the sky, and grew     Fond of them all insensibly. He found     Sweet company in the brooks, and loved to sit     And bathe his fingers wantonly, and feel     The wind upon his forehead; and the leaves     Took a beguiling whisper to his ear,     And the bird-voices music, and the blast     Swept like an instrument the sounding trees.     His heart went back to its simplicity     As the stirr'd waters in the night grow pure -     Sadness and silence and the dim-lit woods     Won on his love so well - and he forgot     His pride and his assumingness, and lost     The mimicry of the man, and so unlearn'd     His very character till he became     As diffident as a girl.                              'Tis very strange     How nature sometimes wins upon a child.     Th' experience of the world is not on him,     And poetry has not upon his brain     Left a mock thirst for solitude, nor love     Writ on his forehead the effeminate shame     Which hideth from men's eyes. He has a full,     Shadowless heart, and it is always toned     More merrily than the chastened voice of winds     And waters - yet he often, in his mirth,     Stops by the running brooks, and suddenly     Loiters, he knows not why, and at the sight     Of the spread meadows and the lifted hills     Feels an unquiet pleasure, and forgets     To listen for his fellows. He will grow     Fond of the early star, and lie awake     Gazing with many thoughts upon the moon,     And lose himself in the deep chamber'd sky     With his untaught philosophies. It breeds     Sadness in older hearts, but not in his;     And he goes merrier to his play, and shouts     Louder the joyous call - but it will sink     Into his memory like his mother's prayer,     For after years to brood on.                                      Cheerful thoughts     Came to the homesick boy as he became     Wakeful to beauty in the summer's change,     And he came oftener to our noisy play,     Cheering us on with his delightful shout     Over the hills, and giving interest     With his keen spirit to the boyish game.     We loved him for his carelessness of himself,     And his perpetual mirth, and tho' he stole     Sometimes away into the woods alone,     And wandered unaccompanied when the night     Was beautiful, he was our idol still,     And we have not forgotten him, tho' time     Has blotted many a pleasant memory     Of boyhood out, and we are wearing old     With the unplayfulness of this grown up world.