TO A LONG-PARTED FRIEND.
"That I never made use of your stay here to unite the present with departed days is one of the things—there are not a few of them—for which I can never be consoled; it was as though a spell lay upon me; I felt it would be enough to speak one word, but that word I could not unclose my lips to speak. The Past could not rise again from its grave, and I felt as though it would have shaken the foundations of that Present, which it is now my duty to preserve and develop. My mind is like a nation that has passed through a revolution, and must proceed in a new order, the old order being irrevocably destroyed . . . . Yet how was it with me after you had gone?"—Niebuhr to Count Adam Moltke.
I.
As by a camp-fire in the wilderness
Two hunters meet, that o'er the Prairie long
Have roamed on distant tracts companionless;
So to this city, drifted by the stress
That draws the nations hither—in the throng
We stood together in this mortal press
A moment face to face; Thou didst not guess
At mine, and I—forgive me then this wrong—
By favour of the light that fitful fell
Did let thee pass unchallenged; so that look,
Thine olden look, so long unseen, so well
Remembered, troubled me; thine aspect shook
The strong foundations of my soul, I knew
It was the Past within its grave that drew
Two hunters meet, that o'er the Prairie long
Have roamed on distant tracts companionless;
So to this city, drifted by the stress
That draws the nations hither—in the throng
We stood together in this mortal press
A moment face to face; Thou didst not guess
At mine, and I—forgive me then this wrong—
By favour of the light that fitful fell
Did let thee pass unchallenged; so that look,
Thine olden look, so long unseen, so well
Remembered, troubled me; thine aspect shook
The strong foundations of my soul, I knew
It was the Past within its grave that drew
