100 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



and manner, and rich in thought and sentiment though 

 meagre, perhaps, and commonplace. Your affection for 

 me will, I dare say, make them poetry to you too. Do 

 you think I shall ever write what will be deemed poetry 

 by anybody else ? I deem my intimacy with you the 

 most important affair of my life. I have enjoyed more 

 from it than from anything else, and have been more 

 improved by it than by all my books. Since you left 

 me I have not advanced an inch ; have you no means 

 of impelling me onward when at a distance? or is it 

 necessary, as in Physics, that before communicating 

 motion to me, we must come in contact ? ' 



The poems are fluent and vivacious, but display little 

 original power or depth of melody. The following lines, 

 probably written among the woods of Conon during his 

 apprenticeship, are not without a certain pensive sweet- 

 ness and sincerity. 



THE DAYS THAT ARE GONE. 



'On the friends of my youth and the days that are gone, 

 In the depth of the wild wood I ponder alone, 

 And my heart by a sad gloomy spirit is moved 

 When I view the fair scenes that in childhood I loved. 

 Harsh roars the rough ocean, o'ercast is the sky, 

 The voice of the wind passeth mournfully by ; 

 For winter reigns wide ; " sure 'tis winter with me," 

 But a spring to my winter I never shall see ; 

 For aught of earth's joys 'tis unmanly to moan, 

 Yet bursts the sad sigh for the days that are gone. 



The fair flowers of summer have vanished away, 

 The green shrub is withered, and leafless the spray ; 

 Yet memory, half sad and half sportive, still shows 

 How bloomed the blue violet, how blossomed the roee. 

 Say, shall not that memory as fondly retain 

 Hold of joys I have proved as of charms I have seen ? 

 Yes Nature's fair scenes are more dear to this heart 

 Than the trophies of love or the pageants of art, 

 Yet more to this bosom those friends are endeared, 

 By whom in life's dawn the gay moments were cheered ; 



