DECEMBER 147 



great beauty and mystery of it all ? I went along our 

 high road, the road along which Nelson travelled to 

 Portsmouth on his way to Trafalgar, never to return. 

 This evening it shone white and dry in the moonlight, 

 and the tall black telegraph-poles double the height 

 and strength of those they replaced a few years ago, 

 and which I have always hated for their aggressive size 

 by daylight in the winter moonlight only seemed to 

 me straight and strong, and as if proud to support that 

 wonderful network of wires which now encompasses the 

 entire globe, annihilating time and making the far and 

 the near as one, ceaselessly carrying those messages of 

 happiness and despair, life and death, which, in the 

 space of a moment, in the opening of an envelope, 

 bring sorrow or joy to many a home. Something of 

 the mystery of it all the wires sang to me to-night, 

 with JEolian sounds different from any I have ever 

 heard, on this one of the last evenings of a year that 

 is nearly gone. By my lonely fireside, this poem came 

 to my recollection : 



The old friends, the old friends, 



We loved when we were young, 

 With sunshine on their faces 



And music on their tongue ! 

 The bees are in the Almond flower, 



The birds renew their strain ; 

 But the old friends once lost to us 



Can never come again. 



The old friends, the old friends, 



Their brow is lined with care ; 

 They've furrows in the faded cheek 



And silver in the hair; 

 But to me they are the old friends still, 



In youth and bloom the same 

 As when we drove the flying ball 



Or shouted in the game. 



