A City Reverie Poem by Alexander Anderson

Here in the city as I sit,
The twilight filling all the room,
I dream, and as my fancies flit,
They weave this picture on their loom:—

A little hamlet, clean and fair,
On either side soft green-clad hills,
And on their foreheads, here and there,
A rocky pathway for the rills;


A hamlet of a single street,
From end to end the children play,
And workers sit, for rest is sweet
After the labour of the day.

A river in the Western beam
Turns silver as it murmurs on;
I hear its music, and I dream,
For boyhood mingles with its tone.

And more than boyhood—youth is there,
And years of toil upon the line;
But yet to me those years were fair
And sweet with what of song is mine.

For all behind the little town,
Four threadlike metals glance and gleam,
Where, hourly, thunder up and down
Swart genii of the land of steam.

They roar and rush in wild desire,
And, moaning in their deep despair,
Belch forth from hearts of molten fire
Smoke-pythons to the shaking air.

What marvel, then, that I was stirred
Within that narrow clanging clime;
That through my songs there should be heard
The ring of wheels within their rhyme.

The twilight deepens on apace,
The vision fades away from me;
But yet another takes its place,
I look, and this is what I see:—

A church and churchyard on the hill,
Where the white sentinels are seen
Guarding the dead that sleep their fill
Beneath their little tents of green.

A sacred spot to me, for there,
Beside a single thorn, the dust
Of those I held as good and fair
Sleep on in perfect love and trust.

They took their youth to higher lands
That mortal eye has never seen;
I cannot reach them with my hands,
Or whisper to them what has been.

I only know that, far apart,
They cannot share my hopes and fears;
That somewhere heart may answer heart,
That theirs is not an eye for tears.

So let them sleep; the grasses grow
Above them; they sleep not alone;
And sweet that sleep would be to know
A mother's dust is with their own.

For she, too, wearied, fell asleep,
And rests beside them as was meet,
For after eighty years the deep
Long silence of the grave is sweet.

I, too, can see, with fears that haunt
From out the years that are to be,
A dull, cold light that falls aslant
A grave that will be made for me.

So be it, for the shadow slips
That muffles all, and death above,
A smile of pity on his lips,
Shakes dust upon the dreams we love.

And then we pass to join the dead,
To share the silence which they crave,
While the great world with iron tread
Roars on and never heeds a grave.

Away with visions! let them sink;
Weak moments have their weaker thought,
And weakest of them all to shrink
In fear, nor front our common lot.

The city stirs: outside I hear
The passionate fervour of the street;
It comes like music to my ear,
O, life is strong, and life is sweet;

And there its thousand pulses, rife
With vigour, ring their perfect tone,
I, too, must mingle with that life
That I may strengthen all my own.